Along For The Ride

Title: Along For The Ride,
Author: Sarah Dessen
Genre: Young Adult
Page Count: 400
Rating: 4/5

Auden is an 18 year old girl who has lived her life striving for excellence in the shadow of her intelligent and successful mother. She is spending the summer with her father and his new wife and baby in the hopes of finally experiencing life before she goes to college. Being self-sufficient her whole life may have taught her many things but surviving the real world wasn’t one of them.

My Review:

I love Sarah Dessen’s writing; she tells great young love stories that are true and real. This one wasn’t my favorite of her books but I still quite enjoyed it. She brought in a lot of previous characters from other books, which was a nice treat. And she once again captured love and heartbreak and new beginnings.

I liked Auden a lot, she was a strong character and I loved her progression throughout the book. The parents drove me crazy, and I frequently wanted Auden to just flip out and scream at them, but of course that would not have been her personality at all.

One of my favorite things about this book was the idea that “smart” or “successful” didn’t mean dull and boring. There were characters that were girly or sporty but they weren’t stereotypical at all.

If you liked;

Keeping the Moon (The Truth About Forever, or any other of her books) by Sarah Dessen, The Last Summer of You and Me by Ann Brashares, My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult, or The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks you might want to check this one out.

My Rating: 4/5