SOMEONE LIKE YOU

by Sarah Dessen ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1998

This second novel from Dessen (That Summer, 1996) will leave even sophisticated readers cheering: A teenager's giving birth on prom night sounds like the stuff of farce, but not in this book--a tender story of two girls who have been best friends since childhood, and the year that changes everything. Halley, named for her grandmother who was named for the comet, has a father who is a raucous local DJ and a mother who writes books about mother/daughter relationships. Perhaps stereotypically, her conversations with Halley have become controlling and strained. Halley's best friend Scarlett has been the grown-up in her household, coping with her single and distracted mother, Marion. Scarlett's first serious relationship ends when Michael, with whom she has just had sex, is killed in a motorcycle accident. It is Halley to whom a pregnant Scarlett turns as she decides to keep the child. Halley, meanwhile, is attracted to Michael's best friend Macon, a classic bad boy: sexy, wild, with too much freedom and too much money. The heart of this tale is the garden of female relationships, especially Scarlett and Halley's; they support each other in all the ways a best friendship entails. When Scarlett's daughter is born, Halley muses about these relationships and what she will tell the baby in a final paean to love, loss, and growing up, in which Dessen's fine writing easily overcomes the occasional wobbly plotline.

Pub Date: May 1, 1998

ISBN: 0142401773

Page Count: 262

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998

Categories: CHILDREN'S