Sarah Dessen’s latest novel Once And For All was released on June 6, 2017
Rating: 4 stars (★★★★☆)
Recommended For: loyal Sarah Dessen readers, people who loved Huntley Fitzpatrick’s My Life Next Door, and people who like Colleen Hoover’s stories but with a younger array of characters
Sarah Dessen’s previous book, Saint Anything, came out in 2015, and every time Dessen publishes a book, she tells us to not have any expectations of her and she tells us that she fears that the book she just published might be her last. And every time Dessen tells us that her latest book might be her last published work, my heart starts to thud and fear begin to pool in my blood because she is such a marvelous author. Thus, I have long since stopped having any expectations of her. Once and For All came as a welcome surprise to me and was the perfect way to start off the summer.
I have to disclaim right from the beginning that I read this book the day it came out but I had been unable to write a review for it until now due to school being back in session. However, since I have finished my finals and it is now currently winter break, you can expect a lot more reviews from me in the months of December and January. Additionally,
And now onto the actual book. In this book, like most of Dessen’s classic chick lit novels, we are told the story from the point of view of a teenage female character, in this case: Louna. And yes, there is the typical love interest that is essential for every successful chick lit novel: Ambrose, although I wouldn’t really say that Ambrose is the typical leading male?
Louna works for her mom, who is this really famous and always stressed out wedding planner, and her mom’s gay wedding planning business partner, William, over the summer. And the three of them are basically depressed single people who are very cynical about love. In fact, the first time Louna sees Ambrose at the beginning of the story, it is at his mom’s wedding which her mom helped plan. Their meeting up is actually very awkward and not cute or instanteous heart eyes which I appreciated.
The story really gets going after her mom and William hire Ambrose to work for them over the summer because he’s a mess and he ruined their office supplies, and that’s how Louna and Ambrose get their love story going. Louna is cynical and mean to Ambrose while he is mostly a happy-go-lucky guy. But we don’t understand why Louna is so cynical about love until we do through a series of flashbacks.
The story was very cute and a very enjoyable one that could easily be read in two to three hours. There are a few things about the story which I did not enjoy, mostly how there were just a lot of other girl love interests for Ambrose and how Louna had a boyfriend too because that’s just too much for me. I understand that maybe Dessen was trying to make the story more realistic and prevalent with today’s teens but no teenage boy, that acts like Ambrose, goes through as many girls as Ambrose does, it’s actually kind of disgusting. And as for Louna, between the guy she dated before she met Ambrose (a.k.a the reason why she was so abrupt with Ambrose) and her boyfriend she dated to get over Ambrose, it just seemed unnecessary. And I do not approve at all about how Dessen made the thing that happened to Louna’s old boyfriend (you’ll see) a plot device because it just seemed to take away from the realness of events like that that happen in real life.
But other than those few things, like I said I enjoyed the story and it was well written and it would definitely be a story that A would have been all over in middle school and maybe even high school.
I’m sorry if this book review is too short but that’s because it is hard for me to remember a lot of things about it since seven months have passed.
Advertisements Share this:
