by Sarah Dessen
Scarlett was always the strong one.
Halley was always content to follow in her wake.
Then Scarlett's boyfriend died, and Scarlett learned that she was pregnant.
Now Halley has to find the strength to take the lead and help Scarlett get through it.
Because true friendship is a promise you keep forever.
"Dessen has written a powerful, polished story."—School Library Journal, starred review
Scarlett was always the strong one.
Halley was always content to follow in her wake.
Then Scarlett's boyfriend died, and Scarlett learned that she was pregnant.
Now Halley has to find the strength to take the lead and help Scarlett get through it.
Because true friendship is a promise you keep forever.
"Dessen has written a powerful, polished story."—School Library Journal, starred review
Available formats-
- OverDrive Listen
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Edition-
- Unabridged
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Languages:-
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Available:1
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Library copies:1
Levels-
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ATOS:5.1
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Lexile:
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Interest Level:MG+
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Text Difficulty:9 - 12
Awards-
- Best Fiction for Young Adults
Young Adult Library Services Association
Excerpts-
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From the cover
Chapter One
Scarlett Thomas has been my best friend for as long as I can remember. That's why I knew when she called me at Sisterhood Camp, during the worst week of my life, that something was wrong even before she said it. Just by her voice on the other end of the line. I knew.
"It's Michael," she said quietly. Her words crackled over distance. "Michael Sherwood."
"What about him?" The camp director, a woman named Ruth with short hair and Birkenstocks, shifted impatiently beside me. At Sisterhood Camp we were supposed to be Isolated from the Pressures of Society in order to Improve Ourselves as Women. We weren't supposed to get phone calls. Especially not at midnight on a Tuesday, rousing you out of your creaky camp bed and through the woods to a room too bright and a phone that weighed heavily in your hand.
Scarlett sighed. Something was up. "What about him?" I repeated. The camp director rolled her eyes this time, thinking, I was sure, that this was no emergency.
"He's dead." Scarlett's voice was flat, even, as if she were reciting multiplication tables. I could hear clinking and splashing in the background.
"Dead?" I said. The camp director looked up, suddenly concerned, and I turned away. "How?"
"A motorcycle accident. This afternoon. He got hit by a car on Shortcrest." More splashing, and suddenly I realized she was washing dishes. Scarlett, always capable, would do housework during a nuclear holocaust.
"He's dead," I repeated, and the room seemed very small suddenly, cramped, and as the camp director put her arm around me I shook her off, stepping away. I pictured Scarlett at the sink in cutoffs and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, phone cocked between her ear and shoulder. "Oh, my God."
"I know," Scarlett said, and there was a great gurgling noise as water whooshed down her sink. She wasn't crying. "I know."
We sat there on the line for what seemed like the longest time, the buzzing in the background the only sound. I wanted to crawl through the phone right then, popping out on the other side in her kitchen, beside her. Michael Sherwood, a boy we'd grown up with, a boy one of us had loved. Gone.
"Halley?" she said softly, suddenly.
"Yeah?"
"Can you come home?"
I looked out the window at the dark and the lake beyond, the moon shimmering off of it. It was the end of August, the end of summer. School started in one week; we'd be juniors this year.
"Halley?" she said again, and I knew it was hard for her to even ask. She'd never been the one who needed me.
"Hold on," I said to her in that bright room, the night it all began. "I'm on my way."
Michael Alex Sherwood died at 3:55 P.M. on August thirteenth. He was turning left onto Morrisville Avenue from Shortcrest Drive when a businessman in a BMW hit him dead on, knocking him off the motorcycle he'd only had since June and sending him flying twenty feet. The paper said he died on impact, the bike a total loss. It wasn't his fault. Michael Sherwood was sixteen years old.
He was also the only boy Scarlett had ever truly loved. We'd known him since we were kids, almost as long as we'd known each other. Lakeview, our neighborhood, sprawled across several streets and cul-de-sacs, bracketed only by wooden posts and hand-carved signs, lined in yellow paint: Welcome to Lakeview—A Neighborhood of Friends. One year some high-school students had gone around and crossed out the rs in Friends, leaving us A Neighborhood of Fiends, something my father found absolutely hysterical. It tickled him so much, my mother often wondered aloud if he'd done it himself.
The other distinguishing characteristic of...
About the Author-
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Sarah Dessen is the author of thirteen novels, which include the New York Times bestsellers The Moon and More, What Happened to Goodbye, Along for the Ride, Lock and Key, Just Listen, The Truth About Forever, and This Lullaby. Her first two books, That Summer and Someone Like You, were made into the movie How to Deal.
Dessen's books are frequently chosen for the Teens' Top Ten list and the list of Best Fiction for Young Adults. They have been translated into twenty-five languages. Sarah Dessen is the recipient of the 2017 Margaret A. Edwards Award from the Young Adult division of the American Library Association.
Sarah Dessen graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with highest honors in creative writing. She lives in Chapel Hill with her husband, Jay, and their daughter, Sasha Clementine.
Visit Sarah at sarahdessen.com.
Reviews-
- Adolescence is hard--at times exciting, at times terrifying, and often both at the same time. For Halley, her sixteenth summer brings sadness, death, new life, and changing relationships with family and friends. Katherine Powell brings all the characters to life. Halley's somewhat unsure, introverted manner at first contrasts with Scarlett's confident, extroverted personality; gradually each voice changes as Halley's romance with Macon forces her to withdraw from her mother and to make her own decisions as she matures. The scenes between mother and daughter grate, appropriately so, as Powell accentuates the growing separation, revealing both underlying humor and adolescent sarcasm. The scenes between Halley and Scarlett are absolutely right, and Powell makes this candid treatment of teenage pregnancy a powerful book. W.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
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May 29, 2000
The ill-starred pioneer family of Mary Jane Auch's Journey to Nowhere and Frozen Summer returns in The Road to Home. This installment, set in 1817, finds 13-year-old Remembrance Nye leading her younger siblings back from upstate New York to their grandmother's house in Connecticut. (Holt, $16.95 ages 9-12 ISBN 0-8050-4921-5; July) A companion to Steal Away Home, Lois Ruby's Soon Be Free alternates between a present-day mystery set in a bed-and-breakfast and a historical adventure about a 13-year-old boy who aids four runaway slaves in 1857. (S&S, $17 ages 8-12 ISBN 0-689-83266-4; Aug.) THE TEDDY BEARS' PICNIC Jimmy Kennedy, illus. by Alexandra Day. S&S/Aladdin, $5.99 ISBN 0-689-83530-2. ~ The illustrator of Good Dog, Carl creates a cozy woodland gathering of cuddly bears, inspired by a favorite song. Ages 3-6. (June) BLAZE FINDS THE TRAIL C.W. Anderson. S&S/Aladdin, $4.99 ISBN 0-689-83520-5. ~ Originally published in 1950, this story of Billy and his adventures exploring the forest with his pony is available in paperback for the first time, complete with colorized cover art. Three more Blaze books previously available only in hardcover will follow. Ages 5-8. (July) ~ SECRET LETTERS FROM 0 TO 10 Susie Morgenstern, trans. by Gill Rosner. Puffin, $4.99 ISBN 0-14-130819-2. ~ "Set in France and wrought with energy and wit, this chronicle of a deprived young man whose life is turned topsy-turvy with a new neighbor's arrival is not to be missed," wrote PW in a starred review. Ages 8-12. (Aug.) THE BOXES William Sleator. Puffin, $4.99 ISBN 0-14-130810-9. ~ This tale of a girl who, like Pandora, is given not one but two boxes she is forbidden to open, is filled with the author's "signature high-style ick and suspense," said PW. Ages 8-12. (Aug.) THE MARVELOUS MISADVENTURES OF SEBASTIAN Lloyd Alexander. Puffin, $4.99 ISBN 0-14-130816-8. ~ Spiced with the author's unique brand of wit, this winner of the 1971 National Book Award follows a young adventurer with good intentions through disaster after disaster. Ages 10-14. (July) REACHING DUSTIN Vicki Grove. Puffin, $5.99 ISBN 0-698-11839-1. ~ PW called this "a heartfelt story that unmasks the vulnerabilities of two preadolescents from very different walks of life." Ages 10-up. (Aug.) SOMEONE LIKE YOU Sarah Dessen. Puffin, $4.99 ISBN 0-14-130269-0. ~ PW said this "realistic portrayal of contemporary teens and their moral challenges breathes fresh life into well-worn themes of rebellion and first love." Ages 12-up. -
May 4, 1998
Dessen's realistic portrayal of contemporary teens and their moral challenges breathes fresh life into well-worn themes of rebellion and first love. Halley has always been close to her mother, a therapist who publishes books about adolescent behavior. But the summer before her junior year of high school, Halley begins cutting the umbilical cord. She and her best friend, Scarlett, start hanging out with Ginny Tabor ("a cheerleader with a wild streak a mile wide and a reputation among the football team for more than her cheers and famous midair splits"); Halley dumps her nerdy boyfriend (the son of her mother's best friend) and becomes involved with reckless Macon, a boy her parents have forbidden her to see. Then Scarlett discovers she is pregnant two months after her boyfriend Michael is killed in a motorcycle accident. Walking a line between childhood and adulthood, the two girls turn to each other instead of their families for support. Together they explore the meaning of love, sex and responsibility. This romance/coming-of-age story is not as tightly written as Dessen's debut, That Summer; it suffers from some scenes reminiscent of soap opera and from flat presentations of almost all the adult characters. But Dessen's fully developed characterizations of charismatic teens, particularly the rebel-without-a-cause-type Macon, are sure to attract readers--especially those who, like Halley, have felt the urge to take a walk on the wild side. Ages 12-up.
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