Review Detail

Along for the Ride is a story about Auden, a girl who is in the midst of the seemingly predictable summer before her first semester of college. Auden has lived with her control-freak college professor mother her entire life, and in order to get away from her mother and the grad student she’s currently sleeping with, Auden decides to go visit her flaky father and his young wife, Heidi, and their newborn baby.

Arriving there, Auden realizes her father is as flaky as ever, her stepmother is a mess, and the baby is extremely colicky. She almost immediately she regrets her decision to visit after her carefree summer is taken away from her.

Auden attracts negative attention from several local girls after she unwittingly hooks up with one of their exes. Then she gets stuck with helping Heidi out with the baby and being a bookkeeper for her store. But as Auden gets to know the people in the small town around her, especially Eli who is alike Auden in so many ways but still a mystery to her, she grows into a person who is so unlike her mother and unlike her father that she can’t be described as anyone but herself.

I really enjoyed Along for the Ride. Like almost all of Sarah Dessen’s characters, Auden can easily be related to by even the average reader. She has her flaws and her good points, and nothing about her screams too perfect, or too much of a mess. She’s socially awkward, and it’s interesting to watch her grows as a person and become more at ease with everyone around her. Eli is cute, mysterious, and the perfect romantic interest for Auden and Sarah Dessen portrays their story wonderfully.

Along for the Ride is not my favourite Dessen book, but if you’re a Sarah Dessen fan, or even new to reading Sarah Dessen, it’s definitely a must read.

Review originally posted on my blog http://hobbitsies.net/2010/09/along-for-the-ride-by-sarah-dessen/