Along For The Ride

Along for the Ride
by Sarah Dessen
Rating: So, so
Difficulty: Normal
Pages: 383

Synopsis
It's been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents' divorce—or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live.

A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town. Together they embark on parallel quests: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she's been denied; for Eli, to come to terms with the guilt he feels for the death of a friend.


Review
I know what you are sayong... “Along for the Ride is ‘so so’!! Are you insane!!!??” Yes, quite possibly I might be insane but at least I admit it. Really, this wasn’t Sarah’s best work and I extremely, gut wrenchingly sorry to say it! I looked around on other blogs to see if I was the only one who thought it wasn’t that extraordinary and it just so happens that after I starred it only 3 stars on Goodreads, I immediately got a comment agreeing with me. Maybe it was just them or not… I don’t know you tell me!

Let’s talk about characters…The good- Eli is great, he’s so mysterious and sad that you can’t help but love him and want to no more about him. Except for the fact that he’s really vague when it comes to his feeling for Auden, he’s a great character. Auden is another one of those, cold-girls-who-never-went-out-in-high-school-and-always-worried-about-school-and-never-had-a-life kind of characters. I really think it’s getting quite old with that whole thing! I do love her name though and her dad’s weird obsession with strange and unique names. Her newborn sister’s name is Thisbe and which catches my eyes.

Better then Auden and her plain jane-ness is the town of Colby, Sarah Dessen took a break from her normal, fictional town of Lakeview and took us to the cost where the sun is warm and everyone is just trying to have fun. I can almost imagine the streets of Colby and the shops that take their place in Eli and Auden’s quest! If there’s on thing that Mrs. Dessen got right in this book, it’s the scenery description!
Auden’s mom is another thing that really ticked me off- her cold and lifeless outer shell and superior attitude rubbed me in all the wrong places, usually she would be the “villain” character in a novel but really she was just really annoying. Maggie on the other hand suorised me in all sorts of was, just like she surprised Auden in the book, I really didn’t imagine her to be smart and a lover of bmx riding, it was a pleasant and interesting surprise!

Overall it was the characters that really made the book so if you think the strong points I mentioned out weighed the low points, go ahead and go buy it! Sarah Dessen is really all about how the story affects YOU, so go find out if you actually liked it and if you did then maybe you would like to pint out a few things I missed and if you agree then let me know how you feel!