thebabyperks

I started reading Sarah Dessen's book in late November. At the time I was reading another book and kind of forgot about this one. It is a summer story and especially when it's getting cold I wanted a little summer time book.

Dessen's "Dreamland" is one of my favorite books. All the books she has written have turned out extremely well. Needless to say, I had high expectations for this novel.

In a way, I was a little disappointed, it took forever to get into. However, I powered through it, holding onto the hope that Dessen could turn the story around. She did. The characters feel real, some irk me, some make me fall in love with them. That's what I want, I want to feel like I have a connection with the characters, like they are actual people.

The negative I have is that it was kind of predictable (how the whole summer love thing turns out) and felt like something I read before.  I obviously knew this going into the story, therefore, if you aren't into the whole summer fling don't read this story.

Overall I give the novel a 7/10. It wasn't awful, it wasn't amazing. I love Sarah Dessen but this isn't one of my favorites. It seems like I enjoy her older stuff better (I do love Along for the Ride though) but pick up the book for yourself and tell me what you think.

If you don't know about the book:

Emaline has lived in the small town of Colby her entire life, so has her mom, and her grandma. She has been dating Luke for years, and now it's the summer before college. City-slickers Ivy and Theo came to Colby to film a movie. Something is intriguing about Theo, he's an outsider, he is so oblivious to the way in life in Colby. When things go wrong with Luke, Emaline starts to turn to Theo and his crazy movie project. Then, Emaline gets an unexpected visit from her father, who left her mom after a one night stand in high school (and never came back again, leaving her pregnant, stereotypical I know). This brought in another bout of twists and turns in the town of Colby, a small town where nothing ever changed, well except for that summer.