NOT A BOOK REVIEW
I promise that this is not a review about yet another sappy love story, most likely written by Sarah Dessen. After reading several of Dessen’s books, her stories have all mushed together in my brain, making it incredibly tedious to write. Instead, here is an overview of Sarah Dessen and her writing style.
By this point, if you have read my other reviews about Sarah Dessen’s literature, you would know that I have read at least two of her books: Saint Anything and The Moon and More. But outside of this blog, I have acquired and perused Once and For All, What Happened to Goodbye, and That Summer. This brings the number of Sarah Dessen books I have read to five. Certainly, I am not the absolute Sarah Dessen fanatic -- I have only read about a third of her published works. In no way is this discussion backlash against this proclaimed author, nor is it an effort to prevent readers from reading her works. However, I hope this review will give you a sense of what to expect when reading this author’s stories.
The first thing you should understand is that Sarah Dessen books are usually geared towards teenage females. This could be a good thing, if you are an average girl in high school (or younger, as there is not much explicit content in her scenes), or if you want to know what an average girl thinks about. Dessen writes with a high school girl as the narrator in mind, and she does an excellent job portraying these protagonists. However, please keep this in mind as we go through a list of repeated concepts in her works.
1. The protagonist is not boy crazy, at least not in the very beginning.
At some point during the book, if not for the entire duration, the story will revolve around a boy. Dessen does not make the protagonist boy crazy (rather, usually, the “best friend” character is), but the protagonist usually encounters a boy and decides to confess everything about her life to this boy. As the chapters progress, the protagonist will eventually realize that this boy is the love of her life. While this realization can be realistic and is not terribly wrong, when this same situation happens in every book only with different characters, it can become tiresome and difficult to read through.
2. Do not assume these works contain no drama.
Since these books are set in high schools, drama always occurs, most likely with friends and family. The main character often switches schools, resulting in the protagonist to start over by simply making new friends. Eventually, however, tension will arise, due to some sort of lack of communication. The teenage protagonist, like many teenagers, will have a strained relationship with her parents, usually the mother figure. This tension is caused by the daughter not obeying the mother or choosing not to communicate effectively with her mother. These events, although they seem stereotypical, are somewhat true and can provide a glimpse of the not-so-pretty sides of the seemingly perfect lives of other teenagers.
3. The SATs are somehow also involved.
This is high school we are talking about. In most of Dessen’s stories, the protagonist is a junior or senior considering, or being influenced to consider, higher education. Despite the easy-to-understand stories she creates, Dessen likes to drop in a few SAT words, since the characters are all enrolled in high school. She does this by making the SAT seem enticingly easy, at least, the ELA portion -- the characters all seem to have aced this section of the test. In the form of vocabulary battles among friends and siblings, Dessen shows readers that a strenuous test can be fun and incorporated into everyday lives.
4. Dessen’s books coexist in her own world.
When reading Dessen’s literature, you are transported into her own world, where each book is a story of someone’s life, existing in Dessen’s made-up world. For instance, cities are connected in some way. Colby, an imaginary beach town, is the main setting of The Moon and More, but is also the vacation town where one wedding in Once and For All occurs and where the protagonist’s stepfather in What Happened to Goodbye bought a beach house. In addition, Ume.com exists in each story -- it is the social media used by characters in Dessen’s world. Furthermore, Jackson High is the high school that Sydney from Saint Anything and Mclean from What Happened to Goodbye both attend. These are only a few examples of connections between books; surely, there are many more for future readers to discover.
Certainly, Sarah Dessen is an incredible writer who knows her audience inside and out. Her books are generally geared towards teenage females who deal with boy drama, more drama with friends and family, and normal everyday encounters in high school, like the SATs. I hope this review has given you a sense of what Sarah Dessen’s books are like, and I hope you keep this information in mind the next time you decide to pick up a Sarah Dessen book.
(Am I supposed to rate Sarah Dessen on the Bologna Blog Scale? But if I have to give her a "grade", she would receive 10/13 bologna slices)
By this point, if you have read my other reviews about Sarah Dessen’s literature, you would know that I have read at least two of her books: Saint Anything and The Moon and More. But outside of this blog, I have acquired and perused Once and For All, What Happened to Goodbye, and That Summer. This brings the number of Sarah Dessen books I have read to five. Certainly, I am not the absolute Sarah Dessen fanatic -- I have only read about a third of her published works. In no way is this discussion backlash against this proclaimed author, nor is it an effort to prevent readers from reading her works. However, I hope this review will give you a sense of what to expect when reading this author’s stories.
The first thing you should understand is that Sarah Dessen books are usually geared towards teenage females. This could be a good thing, if you are an average girl in high school (or younger, as there is not much explicit content in her scenes), or if you want to know what an average girl thinks about. Dessen writes with a high school girl as the narrator in mind, and she does an excellent job portraying these protagonists. However, please keep this in mind as we go through a list of repeated concepts in her works.
1. The protagonist is not boy crazy, at least not in the very beginning.
At some point during the book, if not for the entire duration, the story will revolve around a boy. Dessen does not make the protagonist boy crazy (rather, usually, the “best friend” character is), but the protagonist usually encounters a boy and decides to confess everything about her life to this boy. As the chapters progress, the protagonist will eventually realize that this boy is the love of her life. While this realization can be realistic and is not terribly wrong, when this same situation happens in every book only with different characters, it can become tiresome and difficult to read through.
2. Do not assume these works contain no drama.
Since these books are set in high schools, drama always occurs, most likely with friends and family. The main character often switches schools, resulting in the protagonist to start over by simply making new friends. Eventually, however, tension will arise, due to some sort of lack of communication. The teenage protagonist, like many teenagers, will have a strained relationship with her parents, usually the mother figure. This tension is caused by the daughter not obeying the mother or choosing not to communicate effectively with her mother. These events, although they seem stereotypical, are somewhat true and can provide a glimpse of the not-so-pretty sides of the seemingly perfect lives of other teenagers.
3. The SATs are somehow also involved.
This is high school we are talking about. In most of Dessen’s stories, the protagonist is a junior or senior considering, or being influenced to consider, higher education. Despite the easy-to-understand stories she creates, Dessen likes to drop in a few SAT words, since the characters are all enrolled in high school. She does this by making the SAT seem enticingly easy, at least, the ELA portion -- the characters all seem to have aced this section of the test. In the form of vocabulary battles among friends and siblings, Dessen shows readers that a strenuous test can be fun and incorporated into everyday lives.
4. Dessen’s books coexist in her own world.
When reading Dessen’s literature, you are transported into her own world, where each book is a story of someone’s life, existing in Dessen’s made-up world. For instance, cities are connected in some way. Colby, an imaginary beach town, is the main setting of The Moon and More, but is also the vacation town where one wedding in Once and For All occurs and where the protagonist’s stepfather in What Happened to Goodbye bought a beach house. In addition, Ume.com exists in each story -- it is the social media used by characters in Dessen’s world. Furthermore, Jackson High is the high school that Sydney from Saint Anything and Mclean from What Happened to Goodbye both attend. These are only a few examples of connections between books; surely, there are many more for future readers to discover.
Certainly, Sarah Dessen is an incredible writer who knows her audience inside and out. Her books are generally geared towards teenage females who deal with boy drama, more drama with friends and family, and normal everyday encounters in high school, like the SATs. I hope this review has given you a sense of what Sarah Dessen’s books are like, and I hope you keep this information in mind the next time you decide to pick up a Sarah Dessen book.
(Am I supposed to rate Sarah Dessen on the Bologna Blog Scale? But if I have to give her a "grade", she would receive 10/13 bologna slices)
Hi Firmy, thanks for the review of Sarah Dessen's work! I noticed you'd been reading a lot of her books, and this insight from a reader familiar with her style is very helpful for me, especially as I look into reading her work. Its nice that you manage to stay neutral in your descriptions of her style, providing neither good nor bad impressions. I also enjoyed your splashes of dry humor here and there - the small tidbits make your review all the more interesting. All in all a great and helpful review!
ReplyDeleteGood review! I appreciate that you went into detail about an author since it is a very unique idea
ReplyDelete(compared to the many of book review)! I honestly found this review (I don't know if it should be called that) to be very eye-opening about Sarah Dessen's writing style. Based on what you wrote, her books seem to be very repetitive in the plot line, only differing based on characters and locations. I will keep this in mind if I ever want to try some of her books. I also found your humor in this post to be very amusing and it made the writing more interesting. Overall, this is a great, detailed, and informative review. Good job!
I immensely enjoyed reading your review on Sarah Dessen's writing style and the type of story that her book usually is geared towards. From your review, I get the idea that the stories that Sarah Dessen has written all seem quite similar to one another. I found this helpful as I don't like reading multiple books that all have the same idea as the base of the story. However, I do think I will check out some of her books in the future. Great review!
ReplyDelete