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The Sunday Salon - Lock and Key

Today was not as relaxing as I had hoped; I managed to stay up way too late last night. I didn't even bother attempting to go to church. And my 4 year old woke up my 2 year old prematurely and it feels like the 2 year old has been crying ever since. She hasn't been, mind you. But it sure feels like it!

Today I will continue with Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key.
I was really interested in reading this book after learning that Chelsie considered Dessen one her favorite authors. As of this moment I am on page 125 and I like the book quite a bit, but I don't feel it sucking me in.

A funny thing happened when I was trying to track down some pictures for this post. See, I previously thought I had never read a Dessen book. But it ends up she wrote the two books the movie How To Deal was based off of. And it just so happens that I own those two books published together with a How to Deal cover. And it just so happens I already read the first novel in the book. Clearly it made an impression! :P

Lock and Key has 422 pages and really I am looking forward to them. Ruby is a new student at a day school, which is one again reminding me of my boarding school years. The writing isn't amazing or particularly pretty, but the story is very interesting. Good writing is usually the pinnacle of my enjoyment. So I am always curious when the writing isn't what I want it to be, if it was some sort of style choice that I am just not understanding. For example, lots of people praise Hemingway as a genius, but I find his brief language boring. True at times it can be striking, but that isn't the type of writing that speaks to me. What kind of writing do you like?

Sarah Dessen is a wildly popular young adult novelist. She has written 8 books. Her first book, That Summer, was published in 1996 and Lock and Key just barely came out in hardcover earlier this year. Teens are drawn to her books because they are very much set in a world they know. The characters have realistic flaws and make realistic mistakes.

She currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Chapel Hill is the most adorable place. A town with true character. Has anyone else been there?

Here she is talking about why she also picks this town as a setting for her books. Very fun and insightful.

Comments

  1. I love Hemingway in his sparse use of language, and, on the other hand, I love Faulkner! What I don't like most of all: boring, lazy stereotyping. Writers who tell us what to think instead of allowing us to do the work, or just telling the story.

    Anyway--Chapel Hill is great. Every time we're near it my husband says, "This is where we might have lived." He nearly did his PhD there. We have quite a few of those "This is where we almost lived" places.

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  2. With little children, I don't see how you read at all!

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  3. I loooove Chapel Hill. I live about an hour and a half from there, and I've been to visit once with a friend who went to UNC.

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