Dessen, Sarah - Keeping the Moon

Mar 29, 2006 11:32

Every time I read something by Sarah Dessen, I'm always impressed by the clear prose, the fleshed-out characters, and the delicate observation. But then, I put the book down and don't pick up another one for a few more months. I think it's because these aren't books I want to binge on; I want to read them slowly and draw them out.

Keeping the Moon is about Colie Sparks, daughter of fitness guru Kiki Sparks. Colie has extreme self-esteem issues, thanks to being teased about being fat and on being called a slut. But when she ends up living with her aunt Mira and waitressing in the summer, she makes friends with Isabel and Morgan and learns to live with herself.

This is one of those books that sounds trite when summarized -- I mean, who hasn't read piles and piles of books about the girl who suddenly gets her self-esteem back and makes people respect her and the like? And yet, even though it's filled with imagery of caterpillars turning to butterflies, of people willing themselves to change, it's not trite. It's slow and quiet, and you get the sense that even after Colie changes, she'll keep growing after the book ends.

And there are so many ways that this book could have been silly and preachy, but Dessen avoids them. Colie's mother starts out seeming like a stereotype of the can-do, bouncy aerobics coach, but in the end, the point isn't that she sells cheesy, inspirational tapes. It's that Kiki's belief and her confidence carried her through tough times, and that the eccentric Mira and Colie, that the very different best friends Isabel and Morgan, that the shy artist Norman, they all have that as well. I liked so much that Dessen didn't take the easy way out of just holding up artistic eccentricity as the one way confident people in defiance of society behave, because it's not about that.

The love story is good, but the friendships are better, even more so because they're not confined to the standard "one female friend secretly feels inferior to the other, more popular one" model.

Links:
- gwyneira's review

recs: books, a: dessen sarah, books: ya/children's, books

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