Just Listen by Sarah Dessen Review

I've read Sarah Dessen for a long time. She was recommended to me by my middle school librarian in seventh grade. I've loved just about every book that I've read by her, and Just Listen was no disappointment. Just Listen is another "love wrapped around tragedy" book, and while I usually steer clear of teenage love stories, I absolutely loved this one. It gets 4.5 out of 5 stars for me. In this book, the protagonist is Annabelle Greene, and life seems play games with her, liking her for a few weeks, then turning her whole world upside down again, then liking her, ruining her, repeat. Something I enjoyed a lot about this book was Sarah Dessen's emphasis on Annabelle's "perfect"(not so perfect) family. She explains how their house is "glass" so everyone driving by can see in and they see the perfect family, having dinner or doing whatever. Annabelle's older sister, Whitney, struggles with an eating disorder for much of the book. This proves to be hard for Annabelle to handle, and the issue really hits home for her when she finds Whitney passed out on her bathroom floor, the night before Whitney is placed into impatient rehab. Annabelle's other older sister Kirsten was the social butterfly, having many friends and moving to NYC after her high school graduation. The three sisters have very little in common, but the one thing they all do is modeling. Annabelle's mother, Grace, was very into the modeling and often proved to like it much more than her daughters did, and Whitney being a model was a main trigger for her eating disorder. There were two characters that had both good and bad impacts on Annabelle's life, one good and one bad. Annabelle's best friend for years was Sophie Barker and the two were great friends until a party one night, where Sophie's boyfriend, Will Cash, assaults Annabelle, and Sophie calls her a slut and accuses her of cheating on her with her boyfriend. Their friendship is pretty much ruined after that(as you could expect) and she and Annabelle end up with a physical/verbal fight on a golf course. The golf course is where Annabelle meets Owen Armstrong. Owen is my second favorite character of this book, mainly because he's eccentric. He loves music more than anything in the world, and has a true heart and character that is admirable. Owen isn't your typical "fake, macho" guy. He's successful, and means a lot to Annabelle and plays a huge part in her life. Eventually, Will takes advantage of Emily Shuster, a girl who is a year younger than Annabelle, and hangs out with her and Sophie. Emily breaks the silence, eventually leading to Annabelle coming forward and testifying against Will. My favorite character of this book is Kirsten, because of her attitude. Kirsten may have been the "cause trouble and get drunk" type of girl in high school, but she really turned it around when it came to helping Whitney recover and when it came to college. My favorite parts of Annabelle and Whitney were their amazing fighting spirits. Because Whitney would have ended up much worse off is she hadn't been ready to try and recover, and Annabelle gave all she had to recovery and letting Owen help her.

If you read this book, let me know what you thought about it in the comments below. Who was your favorite character, who had the biggest impact on Annabelle's life, what did you think of Sarah Dessen's emphasis on the "glass house's" meaning and so on. Let me know!