Book Review: The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Emaline is the daughter of a teen mom who had a summer fling while a rich family visited the beach town of Colby.  A couple years later, her mother met a young widower with two young girls. They were married and he adopted Emaline. He is the only dad she ever knew. In elementary school she started a family tree project. She already knew about her past but she wanted to know her father's story. So they exchanged emails and they grew to have somewhat of a relationship that centered mostly around school. As she entered high school her began to talk college with her. He helped encourage her to study and she got into Columbia. He told her to apply and to not worry about the rest (aka money). Right before graduation her sent an email saying that he could no longer pay for her to go. Then she didn't hear from him for a while.

Meanwhile her life moved on during the busy summer of a popular beach vacation town. Her family owned a vacation property management business and pretty much the whole family worked there.She didn't really care for it but she was getting nervous about heading off to college in the fall. She had never been outside of Colby.

She met a guy from New York that was there for the summer. They had a little bit of a fling but I'm glad that it didn't take up a lot of the story; he was kind of boring/annoying. I preferred her 10 year old half brother! Her father was in town to help sell his aunt's beach house so her half brother was there too. He loved hanging out with Emaline and working with her at her job.

The biggest theme of this book was Emaline becoming comfortable with leaving her small town but also still staying close to her family. Out of the three Sarah Dessen books I've read this summer, this and What Happened to Goodbye were pretty similar. I much preferred Saint Anything. But again, still a good read!

Book Review: What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

Another Sarah Dessen book review! Like I said, I'm hooked. I bought this book right after Parker was born but I pretty much haven't touched a book since he was born so I never got around to reading it.

This story was about a girl named Maclean. Her parents had a semi-nasty divorce and she decided to live with her dad, who is a traveling restaurant doer-overer (not quite sure what his title would be!?). Basically he takes restaurants that are failing and he revamps them.

Maclean has a troubled relationship with her mother because she cheated on her father with the college basketball coach. The college baskbetball team the Maclean and her father were obsessed with. Yikes.

Every time they move to a new city, Maclean chooses a nickname to go by and a different persona. When they move to Lakeview, Maclean decides to just be herself. She makes real friends and the neighbor boy is really sweet.

As Maclean is really settling in the new town, her dad is ready to move on. But this time, to Hawaii. So Maclean is going to have to move back with her mom and that is just bad news. When her mom sees how upset she is, she works out a deal for her to finish the school year and graduate with her new friends before going off to college.

This book didn't really have any huge plot lines but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It follows the normal Sarah Dessen formula...teen with some life troubles, finds themselves and friends, and then sorts out their troubles. Not my favorite of hers but not bad.