Just Listen
jenza got me a signed copy of
writergrl's Just Listen from BEA and I read it last week.
I've been reading Sarah Dessen's Livejournal for a couple of years now and adore her. She was one of
ginnysnap's writing professors at UNC and she still lives in Chapel Hill. This was the first book of hers that I've read.
Just Listen is about Annabel Greene, a high schooler who seems to have a perfect life on the outside but is struggling with weighty issues on the inside. She meets Owen Armstrong, a DJ and fellow outcast, and they slowly become friends.
This book is definitely great YA fiction. I hate to use the YA qualifier, but that is the main audience Dessen speaks to, and she does so incredibly well. It is a perfect fit for the Young Adult genre, but I can't imagine it making waves in adult literary circles. However, I do believe she may become the Judy Blume of Generation Y (or Z or whatever generation is currently pimple- and angst-ridden), or at least one Judy Blume among many (as the YA genre seems to have taken off exponentially in the past decade).
I may eventually read some of her others, but for now I have about 50 books waiting to be read at home, so I will attack those first.