Bloggin 'Bout Books Blog

Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen Published: May 5th, 2015 Publisher: Viking Juvenile Received: Bought!! "There's no shame in trying to make broken stuff work, is how I see it. It's better than just accepting the broken." Sydney's family is broken. Her brother Peyton was sentenced to prison for hitting a person while driving under the influence. Sydney's mother is desperate to keep up with Peyton in prison--visits, phone calls, everything she can possibly do. Sydney's father throws himself into work. Sydney just feels guilty. She needs a major change. So she switches school. "You only really fall apart in front of the people you know can piece you back together." Sydney has no friends at her new school. And it's a change to go from an elite private school to a regular public school. She finds herself visiting the pizza place against the way. Just to waste time. She ends up befriending the brother and sister whose famil...

Hello lovelies! For this WCW, I'm featuring a rather prolific author who (I think) gets less love because of her preferred genre.  Sarah Dessen is a North Carolina native (although technically born in Illinois, she grew up in NC, so pretty native) who is about to release her 12th novel. Her first book was published when she was only 26 (if that doesn't inspire someone my age, what would??).  Although her books are frequently applauded by librarian based groups (ALA's Best Fiction for Young Adults has featured 7 of her books, and School Library Journal's Best Book Award has been given to 2), her books have been widely ignored by award committees and popular culture (Technically How to Deal was based on Someone Like You and That Summer--but really it's barely even similar.) She writes beautiful contemporary novels about teens meeting and falling in love. I think they're typically brushed off as teen romances, but her characters have a lot of d...

Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen is a fun, contemporary novel about finding yourself. I've had this book for two years, and even though I've loved Dessen's other works, I kept pushing it aside for other reads. I think part of it was my copy (a slightly water-damaged garage sale find with this truly atrocious cover), and part of it was just that I kept wanting to read other things more . But when I was looking over my bookshelf, I realized that this was the book that I'd moved across the country that I'd owned the longest. And I was feeling like a fun read. Like I needed to feel like it was summer outside and that all the possibilities of the world were at my fingertips. Maybe that was too much pressure to put on one book. This one didn't quite live up to my expectations. But it still left me feeling a little warm and gooey inside. Colie is the daughter of Kiki Sparks, fitness guru extraordinare. Both Kiki and Colie were overweight. But Kiki got her ...