When most people glance at the cover of Just Listen, a teenage girl dressed in a flowery top listening to a music device with the title written in pink lettering, they are immediately put off. The cover itself screams of another sugary, sweet and typical teen novel but this is not the case. Sarah Dessen takes the readers on a journey through the lives of her characters and the challenges of life and how different types of people deal with them.
VOYA writes, “Dessen weaves a sometimes funny, mostly emotional, and very satisfying story.”
Annabel Green is the girl who has everything; a perfect family, modeling jobs, and the status of being one of the most popular girls at school that is until everything falls apart. Her best friend, Sophie, accuses Annabel of trying to steal her boyfriend after a party, when the truth is darker than anybody could ever imagine. At home her older sister, Whitney, has moved back home due to an eating disorder. And to top it all off, she doesn’t want to be a model anymore but fears her honesty will crush her already fragile mother’s heart.
Annabel finds herself sitting by herself at lunch next to the school’s resident bad boy, Owen. They soon develop a friendship, despite their initial hesitancy and Annabel learns that Owen is not the crazy angry freak that everyone makes him out to be, in actuality he is the most honest person she has ever met. Owen seems to be the key the mending the cracks in Annabel’s life, but she cannot fix her life unless she’s honest to others and more importantly herself, especially about that night with Sophie’s boyfriend.
Jocelyn De La Torre, 11th grader, stated “I’ve only read the first few pages, but I’m already hooked. “
Despite the seriousness of this novel the story has it’s moments of light-hearted humor. Owen runs a radio stations that sometimes plays nothing but the sound of chirping crickets and his quirky friend is always in a constant search for a mystery girl that he saw one time.
Just Listen is definitely for readers that are sick of typical cliché, teenage romance novels that lack depth and bland characters. This book is guaranteed to keep reader intrigued from the beginning, to the emotional and truth filled middle, and finally the inspirational end.
The School Library Journal writes, “This is young adult fiction at its best, delving into the minds of complex, believable teens, bringing them to life, and making readers want to know more about them with each turn of the page.”
If readers enjoy Just Listen, Sarah Dessen has written a number of other novels that are just as unique and interesting. Some prominent ones are; Keeping the Moon, The Truth about Forever, and Along for the Ride.
