Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

“Where’s your mother, Ruby?”

Rating: 4.5/5

Summary:Only a few months ago, Ruby, almost eighteen was abandoned by her mother. She’s been living in the yellow house, just getting by, but the game is up and she’s going off to live with her older sister Cora who left for college ten years ago and never returned and her husband Jamie.

Suddenly her life is transformed into the opposite of what it used to be. A luxurious house, private school, new clothes and even the chance to have a fulfilling future that Ruby could never have imagined.

But Ruby is having trouble accepting all this, trusting all of those around her who want to make her life easier for her.

There’s an upside though, the boy next door, Nate, genial, popular and sweet seems to understand her problems, maybe it’s because he’s hiding something of his own though.

Review: Mid April I got this novel, I waited a long seven, eight months for it and I must say it was worth it. Though, Lock and Key doesn’t compare to Just Listen (obviously I love that book, check out the blogs name XD), but fear not fans Dessen fans, it does not disappoint.

The plot was fantastic! Everything clicked and made sense, there were a few twists and turns, but they where good ones keeping the story off a boring path.

Ruby was a great character, very easy to relate to and very real, maybe even the realist of all of Dessen's characters, I loved her reactions to events. Nate was something special though (swoon) very intriguing, he was sweet and just so flawed, he was interesting and his secret was sad but a great twist. I enjoyed other characters in the story such as Gervais the little genius who loves to fart, Olivia who is constantly on her cell phone, Jamie with the huge family, Cora who is strong and has too many friends. Dessen writes some of the most amazing characters YA literature has ever seen and Lock and Key once again, raises the bar.

The descriptions were lovely and the emotion was portrayed and written wonderfully.

Dessen does something many authors don't, she has characters from old novels coming back and Lock and Key had a huge amount, people who have read a few of Dessen's novels will be constantly giggling throughout the novel and if you're new to Dessen's novels it will intrigue you.

The end had just the right amount of closure, it wasn't conry, it just signified the ending of an era, of letting go and that's the sort of ending I like.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book by Sarah Dessen, it touched upon so many topics and in the end won my heart.

Four and a half stars, this book was just fantastic and if you haven’t read a novel by Sarah Dessen yet, go on, what are you waiting for?