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Once again I've picked up along for the ride for the third time and I can't help feel some sort of pull toward it, I love how I can come back to a Sarah Dessen story and it's like coming home to a familiar place.

Auden is an overachiever- studious and way to serious for a girl her age. She normally spends her summers growing up too fast and studying for the year ahead but this summer she decides to take a chance and go down to spend the summer with her step mother Heidi, her father and her newborn half sister Thisbe. One thing I especially love in Along for the ride is that Heidi isn't some bad wicked stepmother, yes Auden does have a few things to say about how girly and cheerful she is but overall they get along great. Although Auden isn't sure what to expect- A job offer with 3 what her mother would call girly girls, a screaming baby and late nights or early mornings with the towns ex pro biker isn't what she had planed for the summer. Except that's exactly where she finds herself- Eli can't sleep something Auden experiences so they make the night worth it but spending them together. Eli opens Auden's mind to new possibilities and fun experiences she didn't realise she was missing out on.

Another great thing is the minor characters- Maggie is shown as some pretty pink girly girl but in reality she's a dirt bike fanatic and intelligent, not everyone is as they as seem.

I love along for the ride especially because of her friendship with Eli. The way they interact really captures something for me but I do wish we saw more of Eli's vulnerable past. I almost hate shutting this book because the characters are just so relatable you want to keep them with you a little longer. It's a story you feel you can relate to well mainly because of the family dynamic not to mention Auden really grows as a character from chapter one to chapter nineteen.

"An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word" - Sarah Dessen, Along for the ride.

Loved your thoughts on this book.

I also loved this book. I picked it up randomly, and once I started it I could not put it down. I've read a few other of Dessen's books but none of them had the 'pull' that this one had!

Along for the Ride is one of my favorite books. I need to reread it soon. I have only read one other Sarah Dessen book, and that was What Happened to Goodbye. Out of the two, this one, as you said, had more of a pull. I was able to personally relate to Auden, and at times found myself in similar situations. I was more entertained by this book than the other one I read others I have tried to read.

As a young adult, I would like to say that this novel is rather harmless as it doesn't promote any bad ideas or values for young impressionable people. The family dynamic is interesting and refreshingly different. The step-mother is young and friendly to her stepdaughter and looks at her with enough kindness and affection. The father himself is very realistic as he does express the cultural shame of a man not being the chief breadwinner of the house. It allows the reader to see why he became who he is, but the main character and her mother are smart enough to see that he is creating the same mistakes again, as he is human and finds difficulty in changing, even after a divorce. The main character herself is a tad typical and the set up itself is not original in its entirety. I feel that Auden falls into a typical archetype of females in young adult novels and that Eli falls into the only slot there is left to fill. However, as there is a multitude of books like these, there is no harm in Along for the Ride being anyone's favorite. I have read this in my youth, but it is not one I'll be returning to.