Lock & Key

I read Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen (thanks to the ARC I got from ATR reader Heather - - thanks again!!!). High school senior Ruby Cooper goes to stay with her older sister Cora after social services is alerted to the fact that Ruby is living alone in a house, abandoned by her unstable mother. Ruby and Cora used to be close, but they haven't spoken since Cora left for college ten years ago. In the intervening time, Cora has become a lawyer and married a very wealthy man named Jamie. At first, Ruby is desperate to run away and return to her old friends and her old life, but Cora and Jamie are very dedicated to her, and she begins to adjust to her life with them and at her new school. [Achtung: Possible small spoilers coming.] The neighbor who lives behind Cora and Jamie, Nate, is (conveniently!) Ruby's age and attends the same private school she must attend. He is an athlete and handsome and very nice, and at first, Ruby tries to maintain an acquaintance-like distance. It doesn't work too well, though, and Ruby and Nate end up being attracted to each other and sort-of-unofficially dating. Nate has his own issues, however, and Ruby has to figure out how she can help Nate or deal with not helping him.

Basically, if you like Sarah Dessen's writing, you'll like this book. It's very typical of her. I like her writing, so I liked this book. There is a female main character, she has some personal issues with herself and her family, there's a hint of romance, and things must be worked out. As with her other books, there are well-developed secondary characters. Each character and situation is always different in her books, but the style is very consistent. One thing that is slightly different in this book is that Nate also has issues to work through. I think it would have been neat if the book alternated between Nate and Ruby as narrators to give it a little something different. I didn't like this quite as much as Just Listen (man, I loved the sister in that book), but it was good.

One of the fun tidbits about Lock and Key is that it obviously takes place in the same generic place that Just Listen did because Cora and Jamie live in Wildflower Ridge, and Nate turns on Annabelle's radio show (among other JL allusions).