Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

From the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Once and for All To find the truth you've got to be willing to hear it. When she's modeling, Annabel is the picture of perfection. But her real life is far from perfect. Fortunately, she's got Owen. He's intense, music-obsessed, and dedicated to always telling the truth. And most of all, he's determined to make Annabel happy. . . This is young adult fiction at its best. --School Library Journal Sarah Dessen is the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her contributions to YA literature, as well as the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award. Books by Sarah Dessen: That Summer Someone Like You Keeping the Moon Dreamland This Lullaby The Truth About Forever Just Listen Lock and Key Along for the Ride What Happened to Goodbye The Moon and More Saint Anything Once and for All Editorial Reviews This is young adult fiction at its best ... -School Library Journal Dessen weaves a sometimes funny, mostly emotional, and very satisfying story. VOYA - From the Publisher Annabel Greene, who narrates, lives with her gorgeous sisters in a glass house designed by their architect father, in Dessen's (This Lullaby) familiar suburb of Lakeview. Predictably, the surface perfection masks trouble. Oldest sister Kirsten, the family powder keg, has left for New York. When middle sister Whitney follows to pursue a modeling career, the two clash, and Whitney returns home with a full-blown eating disorder. Their mother, Grace, operates in what Annabel wryly calls the default Greene family mode, pretending everything is just fine. Annabel, who inherited this trait, nevertheless begins her junior year as a pariah. Flashbacks reveal that her unwanted status is the result of something that happened with the boyfriend of her ex-best friend, a vicious girl who believes everyone had a place and it was her job to make sure you knew yours. What moves this story beyond problem novel fare is Dessen's nuanced characters, especially hulking Owen, another outcast who, in befriending Annabel, reminds her not to judge by appearances, while steeping her in his eclectic musical tastes. Annabel sharply observes everyone's blinders, including most of her own-with one disturbing exception. The heroine paints her problem as social ostracism, when really the situation is much more serious. But since Annabel [doesn't] do confrontations, she swallows the truth until her attacker victimizes someone else. Comparisons to Melinda, the heroine of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, are inevitable. Dessen packs a lot into this novel, perhaps too much; but Annabel and Owen's finely limned connection alone gives this novel staying power. Ages 12-up (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Gr 9 Up-Annabel Greene seemingly had everything: cool friends, close family, good grades, and a part-time modeling career in town. But it all came crashing down, and Annabel has spent the summer in shaky, self-imposed exile. She finds herself dreading the new school term and facing, well, everyone again. The last thing she wants to do is revisit old friendships-while the losses are painful, the secrets behind the rifts are almost unbearable. Her solid family seems fragile, too. What happened to cause the stiff silences and palpable resentments between her two older sisters? Why is no one in her loving but determinedly cheerful family talking about her middle sister's eating disorder? Annabel's devastating secret is revealed in bits and snatches, as readers see her go to amazing lengths to avoid confrontation. Caught between wanting to protect her family and her own struggles to face a devastating experience, Annabel finds comfort in an unlikely friendship with the school's most notorious loner. Owen has his own issues with anger, but has learned to control it and helps her realize the dangers of holding in her emotions. Dessen explores the interior and exterior lives of her characters and shows their flaws, humanity, struggles, and incremental successes. This is young adult fiction at its best, delving into the minds of complex, believable teens, bringing them to life, and making readers want to know more about them with each turn of the page.-Roxanne Myers Spencer, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal An easily digestible tale about a 17-year-old model who, despite her recent back-to-school clothing commercial, isn't really [t]he girl who has everything. Annabel secretly wants to quit modeling; one of her sisters has an eating disorder; and their mother's past depression makes expressing any unhappiness feel risky. Underneath Annabel's silence is a secret from the previous spring, a secret that astute readers will decode early on. It's the reason she's a social outcast and it makes her cling extra hard to fake cheerfulness. Oddball schoolmate Owen cracks her shield with candor and music, and Annabel learns to speak her own truth. Readers may be disappointed that after so much buildup to the moments of truth-telling (one to her family, one to Owen), we're not privy to the scenes. Despite dark issues, the overall tone is mild. Dessen's characterizations are glib, each metaphor and major point made explicit. Not deep, but absorbing and enjoyable. (Fiction. YA) - Kirkus Reviews Shhh, Annabel, it's just me. These words, whispered in the dark at a party, haunt Annabel. As the youngest, she has always been a quiet observer. Allowing her older sisters' their complicated lives and keeping peace with her controlling friends take precedence over her own needs. Now as aspects of her life are falling apart, Annabel meets Owen, who values honesty above all else and teaches her to find her voice. It is the voice of narrator Jennifer Ikeda that haunts listeners when she whispers as the would-be rapist, when she displays righteous indignation as Owen, when she confesses a sister's eating disorder, and, especially, when she conveys the emotional confusion Annabel feels about all of these relationships. Just listen to this remarkable production. M.M.O. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine - AUG/SEP 07 - AudioFile