Just Listen

Just Listen

by Sarah Dessen


Once there was a family - father, mother, and three sisters.  All three sisters were beautiful, each in her own way.  And all of them were professional models.  From the outside, their lives would have seemed perfect.  They weren't.

Can I just start by saying that this is not at all the kind of thing I normally read?  I keep away from romance novels like they were contaminated with the Cheese Touch, in general, and am more likely to read about dragons, witches, or daring space adventures.  But one of my students has been reading so much Sarah Dessen this year, and enjoying it so much, that I had to give it a try.

And do you know what?  I liked it.  A lot more than I expected to like it.

Just Listen was a page-turner.  Every time my interest in the three beautiful sisters started to falter, a new question was introduced that made me feel that I had to read just a little further, to find out its answer.  Why won't anyone deal with Whitney's obvious eating disorder?  Does the mother's mental health depend on her daughters' modeling, and will she fall apart if they quit?  What really happened the night Annabel and Sophie's friendship fell apart?  Each question led to another, until I found myself at the final page, satisfied with all of their answers, sincerely moved by how far all three girls had come.

The character I really liked was Owen.  I don't think I'll be giving anything away to say that he's Annabel's love interest - anyone who has ever read a romance is going to see that coming from his first appearance in the book. Owen is intensely dedicated to weird music, total honesty, and the principles of anger management, and I loved his intensity.  He was exactly the kind of strange, passionate kid I would have been friends with in high school, and I thought he was just wonderful.

Will I be looking for more Sarah Dessen?  Maybe not.  I still would rather read about thrilling space adventures than about the pressures of being a beautiful teenage girl.  But I'll be a lot more open to giving her work a chance, and I think that if you do like romances, you might love this.