Dessen, Sarah - Someone Like You

[oyceter]

This was incredibly difficult to read, not because it was bad, but because it did what it set out to do so very well

Comments

[fiveandfour]

I saw that Mandy Moore movie How to Deal, which the credits said was based on this book. I thought at the time that this might be a book my daughter could like when she's a few years older and I intended to find it - then completely forgot about it. The movie gave the impression that the mother-daughter relationship problems were about equal as respects "fault"; it sounds like the book had a different way of portraying that tension, possibly one more relatable to your average teen. (And I remember being most impressed with the Scarlett storyline in the movie since it seemed the most original, I haven't seen that before element in the story.)

Anyway, sounds like Dessen has a few books under her belt so my daughter will probably find her all by herself. It's just been fun for me to find things I liked as a kid or things I've heard about recently and sock them away for her, but I suppose when she gets to the middle-to-high school years something I picked out will be about the last thing she'll want to read :).

[oyceter]

I think Dessen actually does a very good job of portraying the mother-daughter relationship and not making it any one person's "fault;" it's probably more my personal feelings that bias me toward one side. It's also in Halley's POV, so that could also change things.

But I really do like Dessen and her books, and hope that your daughter does too!