Along for the Ride |  | Author: Sarah Dessen
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $9.97
as of 11/22/2009 02:02 CST details
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New (44) Used (15) from $8.99
Seller: tsyryca
Rating:  58 reviews
Sales Rank: 1086
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 383
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.5
ISBN: 0670011940
EAN: 9780670011940
ASIN: 0670011940
Publication Date: June 16, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Its been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents divorceor since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live. A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town. Together they embark on parallel quests: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life shes been denied; for Eli, to come to terms with the guilt he feels for the death of a friend. In her signature pitch-perfect style, Sarah Dessen explores the hearts of two lonely people learning to connect.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 58
 Learning to ride November 19, 2009
Jozy Sanlar
Auden is soon going off to college, but for summer she wants to move to her father's house with his new wife and a new daughter. Auden's parents are divorced, and because of their arguing, she's developed insomnia. Because of her parents, she's missed out on how to ride a bike and never actually knew what fun is. However, she meets Eli.
Don't miss out on Sarah Dessen's latest novel! And remember, it's okay to miss out on something fun.
 along for the ride November 11, 2009
Lisa (Seattle)
The book was good, but a bit short for me. It's a good read for teens, but I find all her books to be quite the same. I've read all her books so far and they have a good lesson in it, however I just think all her characters from previous books are similar and I feel like it's just predictable now. I'm a bit disappointed in this book and the author because I honestly expected more out of this book.
 Along For the Ride November 7, 2009
YA Book Queen (USA)
After the first chapter, I was panicking internally. Oh, no. Auden seemed like a Macy-clone, whom I love, but less likable.
However, as I went on, I found Auden to be different from Macy (The Truth About Forever). Auden's a smart girl, but she has not lived life. I loved how this novel really gives hope to people that haven't done everything they wish they could have in the past. Auden shows you that it's never too late to learn something new, no matter how old you are. It's never too late. The characters took a bit longer for me to grow to like, but I grew to love them, nonetheless.
I actually found Heidi, Auden's new step mom, to be one of my favorites, oddly enough. Eli turned out to be a sweet, loner guy, and the girls at the boutique are the type you want to be best friends with. Although, at times, I found Auden's relationship with Maggie, Leah and Esther to be unrealistic. I highly doubt they would have liked her as much as they did, so fast. Auden comes across as cold-shouldered (to me anyway), and I couldn't help but think that she wasn't likable.
Highlights: Isabel and Morgan (Keeping the Moon) made a short appearance, which I loved. Also, while this novel isn't my favorite, it's a huge step up from Lock and Key. I liked L&K, but I liked this more. Dessen got her super-fantabulousness back, and it shows. Also, I love the name Auden. It's so original, so beautiful. The nightlife that Dessen explored in this novel was great too, the whole what-goes-on-while-you-are-sleeping concept. And pink! I loved the cover. It's so daring, pink and red? You can't do that! But it looks great, and it is just as great inside.
Lowlights: Jason. Ew. Jason? Really? Jason. What about Auden's father? What the hell is wrong with that guy? I realize no one is perfect, but what on earth could Heidi have even saw in him? He cannot even care for his children, he doesn't seem to want them. He wouldn't even compromise on their child's name. Thisbe? Really? You named her Thisbe?
At first I thought it was going to be Auden's mother that I disliked, but it wasn't in the end. At least she was able to deal with everything, and be an adult. I guess I also wanted something more from Auden. At times I found her boring. I wanted some little quirk, something, that made me say, "Oh, you are human like the rest of us".
Cute, Cute, Cute!! November 3, 2009
Arielle (Midwest, USA)
I adore this book.
Sarah Dessen has done it again. She has captured everything I always want in a book. Family. Friends. Love. Vacations. And a great message/meaning to be learned and remembered.
Auden is from a broken family. Her parents split up when she was 16, she is now 18, but it still was hard for her to handle, especially since her brother was never there to comfort her and her parents seemed oblivious to her hurting. Her parents were both part of the academics, both book writers and both very hard working people. Auden grew up loving school and loving learning, and she would let anything get in the way of that. She grew up without a normal childhood and without many friends, her life revolved around doing better in school and pleasing her parents, even if they rarely showed they noticed her achievements. After her parents split up she lived with her mother and her father moved near the beach were he soon met Heidi, her now stepmom. Heidi is always emailing Auden to come visit them at the beach, so she can meet her new baby sister, Thisbe. And for once, Auden decides to go, she wants to spend time with her dad before she goes to college in the fall.
But when Auden gets to where her father lives, a little beach town called Colby, she is in for a real surprise. Her father is working on a new book and is so caught up in it, he cant find time for his own daughter. And Heidi is constantly dealing with Thisbe who constantly cries. Auden doesn't know what might happen that summer and she isn't expecting what happens to her.
She may finally be able to get her childhood back before adulthood and reality set in. With a little help from Colby residents and her new found quest, she is starting to become the girl she always knew she wanted to be but was too afraid to tell anyone.
This book is one of a kind, but so are all of Sarah Dessen's other books. I love this book. I love all the characters and I absolutely love the setting. It made me want to go to the beach and just relax and have some fun, while meeting cute boys and trying new things. So definitely pick this book up if you need a great summer read, its fantastic!
i want a ride! September 24, 2009
Haley (North Carolina)
Sarah Dessen caught me by the cover: I'm a bike rider. So I approached this book with eagerness, and it paid. The story was compelling, as Dessen's novels always are, and they force you to read just one more chapter. I got to the end of the book, and wished there were more chapters. I re-read the last chapter a few times, just because it was so perfect. So so perfect. It solved all the problems in the book, didn't leave you hanging, and made you smile and whisper to yourself "yes."
She's academically focused to the point that she runs to her studies when she's afraid of choices, she's developed a sleeping disorder from her parent's fights before they divorced, and now she's visiting her dad and his new wife and newborn baby for the summer, simply for lack of anything else to do. But Auden is named after a poet that nobody knows about, has forgotten how to ride a bike, and made a bad first impression with her new co-workers. She meets a quiet boy named Eli with too many secrets and all the right answers. She missed prom because her date was just like her--to school-centered to care about having fun in life. She never had a food fight, she never broke curfew, and she's never been to a bar ("it's a rite of passage!"). Eli is astonished that anyone could get through the first eighteen years of their life without going bowling at least once, and sets out to help her experience everything she missed. But now that she has the answers to the things she missed in life, and can see the next step and the decisions she has to make, she has to choose to "get back on that bike," even when she falls down.
The characters in this story were so relatable. I understood exactly how Auden felt (even though I did build a tree-house in third grade) and could feel her confusion in this strange new social world of hers, the surprise of showing up at work one day and discovering "hey, whoa. How did this happen? I have friends now!" I was blown away when I found out Eli's mysteries, and loved Maggie even more when she showed her true colors. All characters have their fatal flaws, and these ones do too, but it makes them real people, not just fairy-tales. Her father was a selfish jerk, but he had his commitments--he just needed to prioritize his family over his novel. Her mother was a hard shell--but she could learn to talk about her feelings, and open up. Leah looked like a snob until you got to know her. And Eli... well, I'll let you discover Eli the way you need to discover him...
I will probably buy this book when it shows up at my little used book store (because I'm too broke to buy it full price) and put it on my bookshelf with my name in the cover, and read it again, and again, and again... because I truly loved it. Thank you, Sarah Dessen, for writing good YA fiction.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 58
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