Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
New York : Viking, 1998.
281 p. ; 22 cm.
Novels by Sarah Dessen are popular at UHS Library and I've been meaning to read one of her novels for a long time. After finishing The Handmaid's Tale for our book club, I decided to pull Someone Like You off the shelf and take it home to read.
The novel focuses on two senior high school friends, Scarlett and Halley who are neighbors and best friends. Early in the novel Scarlett is pregnant and Halley is changing from her parents' "good girl" into a young woman interested in serious dating, and breaking rules. Halley's coming of age is complicated by having a mother who's professional life is being a writer/expert on raising adolescents. It sounds all rather boilerplate and boring, but...
Dessen has an extraordinary ear for dialogue and for subtlety that escapes many less capable YA authors. Her strength is very rich character development that avoids stock characters and stereotypes. Additionally her plotting is interesting and moves along briskly; I found the book hard to put down. Probably the most refreshing aspect of this book was the way in which almost all the characters in the book are sympathetic, but imperfect. Reading it, I found my sympathies shifting between characters as they developed and confronted situations that showed their deeper qualities...
I would definitely recommend Sarah Dessen to anyone interested in the "problem novel" who wants a well written, complex, character-driven but enjoyable story.
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