Lock and Key
54. Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key
Ruby Cooper has grown up valuing independence. After all, she’s used to being alone - first her dad left when she was a little girl, and then her sister Cora went away to college and forgot about her. When her alcoholic mother abandons her too, Ruby is shocked, but she manages to take it in stride. Everything is just fine, until her nosy neighbors discover that she’s living alone and call social services. Now Ruby is forced to move in with Cora and her husband Jamie, whose upper-middle-class suburban lifestyle definitely isn’t what Ruby’s used to. She swears to herself that this arrangement is only temporary; the second she turns 18, she’ll be on her own for good. But as she slowly starts to form ties to her new life, she begins to wonder if being alone is all it’s cracked up to be.
Sometimes a book comes along right when you need it, and this book definitely fit the bill for me today. I always find Sarah Dessen’s books absorbing and comforting, and Lock and Key is no exception. All the main characters are appealing, and Ruby is definitely a heroine to root for, even when she stumbles and makes mistakes - although it’s her caring, exuberant brother-in-law Jamie who steals the show! I also liked Ruby’s relationship with next-door-neighbor Nate, although I felt like his “secret” could have been handled with greater subtlety. One neat thing about Dessen’s books is that they’re all basically set in the same universe, and sometimes you can find references to characters in another book - in this one, Jamie makes a passing reference to Owen from Just Listen. I also liked how the ending of this book was somewhat ambiguous, yet it was still clear that everything was going to turn out all right. If you like Sarah Dessen, this novel will not disappoint.