Page count: 396 pages
Audio book length: 11 hrs 46 mins
Rating: 4 stars
While Annabel Greene may star in the local department store's back to school commercial as "The girl who has everything", she returns to school utterly ostracised, after a summer spent alone, after a disastrous party late last term where everything changed for her.
When she runs into her former best friend Sophie, undisputed Queen Bee at their school, she is met with insults and sharp comments. When she thinks back to that one night when Sophie turned against her, she throws up. The only one she sees regularly now, not that they ever speak, is the mysterious Owen Armstrong, rumoured to have a serious temper, enough to have sent him on a stint to juvie.
Despite the fact that Annabel has gone from being one of the most popular girls in school to an utter outcast, she doesn't share any of this with her family. Nor does say anything to her mother about wanting to quit modelling, even though Annabel hasn't really enjoyed doing it for ages now. Annabel is the youngest of three, with both of her older sisters having very strong personalities. Annabel became the peacekeeper, the one who tells white lies and omits to share her own discomfort just so others won't ever feel hurt or uncomfortable. Her mother struggled with depression for a while, and Annabel is terrified that now that her sisters have both quit modelling, her mother will descend back into depression if Annabel too announces that she doesn't want to do it anymore.
Annabel's eldest sister Kirsten is a waitress/hostess in New York and studies communication part-time. She briefly shared a flat with their middle sister, Whitney, who had a very successful run modelling in the Big Apple and developed an eating disorder that left her unconscious on the bathroom floor, her emaciated body having gone into shut down. Annabel was the one who found her. Now, months later, Whitney lives at home, carefully supervised by her parents and forced into a healthy eating regime and therapy she bristles against. Even if Annabel felt that she could talk about the things that have happened to her, she doesn't really have anyone to open up to.
Eventually, Owen and Annabell start chatting during their shared lunches, and Annabell is shocked to discover that Owen never lies and strives to be honest in all things. He's been through a lot of anger management and has learned to sift through the sort of polite deflections most people offer when they don't want to be put on the spot. Through her friendship with Owen, Annabel is forced to re-evaluate her own approach to life and especially truth-telling, and she keeps having her eyes opened to new experiences thanks to Owen's truly eclectic tastes in music. Being as open and honest as Owen is utterly terrifying, however, and Annabel is already shunned and reviled by pretty much everyone. How much worse would it be if people knew what actually happened at that party back in the spring?
Sarah Dessen was never part of my adolescent reading, mainly because she published her first novel in 1996, when I was in my first year of high school, but based on this book, and The Truth About Forever (both published after I had graduated with an M.A from the University of St. Andrews and was busy trying to support myself through call centre work upon my return to Norway), which I read back in 2018, I sort of wish they had been. It's clear why she is such a popular and well-loved writer, and her books feature interesting protagonists in serious and believable situations, who really need to work through issues, yet the books never feel patronising or sanctimonious, or the plots clichéd and predictable. Was it pretty obvious to the reader within a few chapters more or less what had happened at that party that drove a wedge between Annabel and Sophie? Yes, it was, but that's not what the story is really about, so it doesn't matter whether the reader is just waiting for much of the book to have it confirmed.
I suspect reading these books as a teenager is very different from reading them as a middle-aged teacher of secondary school kids. Yet I'm pretty sure that most discerning readers, no matter their age, will be aware that Sophie is an awful, toxic person and that while Annabel is miserable and very lonely at the start of the book, she is much better off without her former "friend". As someone who has spent much of the last few years learning to be more open, honest, and assertive, I also had great sympathy for Annabel's conflict aversion and always trying to please people. It's still incredibly hard for me to ask for help or be honest about my feelings in situations where I'm uncomfortable, especially if I'm worried about hurting someone's feelings, or that they'll get angry and upset. Like Annabel, I tend to put everyone's needs before my own, and it takes time to reprogram that.
Both of my Sarah Dessen books have been on my actual (digital) bookshelf since mid-2015, and on my TBR for much longer. I really need to explore more of her books now, but at least one benefit of discovering her this late is that there's a big back catalogue I can explore.
Judging a book by its cover: Since this book was first published in 2006, this book has had a number of covers, some much more appealing than others. The cover my version has is clearly very geared towards teenage girls, with the pastel pink font with the author's name, as well as the sheet on the girl's bed. A girl intently listening to music is a very suitable choice of cover image, though, as Annabel really starts getting into music through her friendship with Owen.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
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