Is there another word for heartbreaking? One that can abridge feeling completely drained, shattered, but at the same time hopeful? If the word does exist, that’s this book in a nutshell.
While reading this, I literally recoiled and would slap the book shut, but after a few seconds, I would open it again to see what would happen to a girl named Caitlin. She never feels like she’d be good enough for her sister Cass, which leads her to trouble. And that trouble is named Rogerson (this is arbitrary, but I wouldn’t say I liked how he dressed). He’s different and wild, and she feels like she can gain that from him. Things seem good enough at first, but you see intimations of things that don’t seem right… (I don’t want to give away what happens because it isn’t cited in the cover description) I wanted to shake Caitlin at times. She herself knows that she is on a disparaging path but feels like she can’t do anything to get rid of it. Though that isn’t true, you always have a choice.
This book is so fresh. I understood why Caitlin thought the way she did, even if it was immoral. It really opened my eyes to the state she was in. Be warned that there is a lot of drug use. Rogerson is a drug dealer, so it was certain. Dessen does a good job of showing the adverse effects of drugs without being preachy, or on the other hand being mistaken as a “stoner” book. At times to heal you have to go through pain, and drugs cheat you of that chance. Sarah Dessen is an expert of showing how all the little choices we make add up to what path we are lead to. She does this in all her books, but it’s highlighted in this one particularly. As always her representation is perfect, and as all you fans know she really does know her stuff.
And with this novel, did I realize, that no matter how someone can think a certain person is so happy, just because she smiles all along, is not the way how she actually feels. And that no matter how hard you sham, there always this tiny shard of evidence that something’s wrong with you. This book is very disheartening, but full of hope because I love the conclusion. I might consider not re-reading this because it’s really hard to stand with its solitary theme, but I will, regardless of that, during the times when I’m down. And though I have only read 2 books by Dessen, this, I guess, will always be my favorite.