Emily's Musings

YA41: Someone Like You

Finished another book on tape in the car this morning on the way home from our regular Saturday morning campaign meeting. I really enjoyed it and was completely laughing out loud at the final scene. Along the way I had caught myself yelling at the mom character and completely sympathizing with the main character Halley.

Someone Like You
Sarah Dessen
(not at all related to the Ashley Judd movie, which is actually based on the v.v. good chicklit book, Animal Husbandry)
About the Book
Puffin Books, 1998, 281 pages
Listening Library, 4 tapes

Halley's just about to turn 16 and life is definitely changing. She's fighting with her Mom all the time, her best friend's boyfriend is killed in a motocycle accident and finds out she's pregnant with his baby, she starts hanging out with a wilder crowd and meets a very wild boy... There are some great details like the clean-cut accountant that Scarlett's mother is dating and his slow transformation into his alter-ego Vlad from the medeival reenactments... the utterly disasterous start to prom night and its glorious, goofy ending...

PW writes, "Dessen's realistic portrayal of contemporary teens and their moral challenges breathes fresh life into well-worn themes of rebellion and first love.... This romance/coming-of-age story is not as tightly written as Dessen's debut, That Summer; it suffers from some scenes reminiscent of soap opera and from flat presentations of almost all the adult characters. But Dessen's fully developed characterizations of charismatic teens, particularly the rebel-without-a-cause-type Macon, are sure to attract readersAespecially those who, like Halley, have felt the urge to take a walk on the wild side." From Audiofile, "Adolescence is hard--at times exciting, at times terrifying, and often both at the same time. For Halley, her sixteenth summer brings sadness, death, new life, and changing relationships with family and friends. Katherine Powell brings all the characters to life. Halley's somewhat unsure, introverted manner at first contrasts with Scarlett's confident, extroverted personality; gradually each voice changes as Halley's romance with Macon forces her to withdraw from her mother and to make her own decisions as she matures. The scenes between mother and daughter grate, appropriately so, as Powell accentuates the growing separation, revealing both underlying humor and adolescent sarcasm. The scenes between Halley and Scarlett are absolutely right, and Powell makes this candid treatment of teenage pregnancy a powerful book." The NY Times was not as kind, writing: "It will entertain teen-age girls, but its reliance on the conventions of so many young-adult novels pegs in as a genre piece."

Gr. 7-12, Ages 12-up