Along for the Ride

So, Along for the Ride was actually a good book, not on the same level as The Truth About Forever or Just Listen, but good none the less. It actually had a nice ending, which I don't say a lot, becuase it answered most of the questions posed throughout the story. The main characters were complex, but Auden seemed kind of uncaring until the end. There was a lot of personal development from all the characters, although they kind of all had the same problem. All in all it was a good read, and written in the typical Sara Dessen style.

Review/ Description

Studious good girl Auden, named for the poet, makes a snap decision to spend her summer before college at her father's beach house rather than with her mother, a professor whose bad habits include male grad students. Auden's parents divorced three years earlier, a split she's not yet over. Her remarried father has already produced another heir, a colicky baby named Thisbe (after a tragic figure from Shakespeare), with his young wife, Heidi, who owns a boutique. Feeling sympathy for stressed-out Heidi, Auden agrees to do the shop's bookkeeping, providing her with an instant social circle-the teenage clerks plus the boys from the neighboring bike rental, including hunky, wounded Eli. Both night owls, Auden and Eli bond when he coaxes her to experience childhood activities-bowling, food fights, learning to ride a bike-that her insufferable parents never bothered to provide.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre was a ver unusual sort of book, in my opinion. Not in the sense of its material being unusual just the characters. Really there were three stories going on throughout the book. The story of Jane's childhood, the story of Jane and Mr. Rochester, and the story of Jane's life after Mr. Rochester. In the end everything sort of works out, but a few characrers had some life changing events happen. I didn't agree with everything that happened, but I did like the book for the most part. It wasn't a Pride and Prejudice or anything, however it was worthy of being a classic.

Review/Description

Orphaned at an early age, Jane Eyre leads a lonely life until she finds work as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets the mysterious Mr. Rochester and sees a ghostly woman who roams the halls by night. This is a story of passionate love, travail and final triumph. The relationship between the heroine and Mr. Rochester is only one episode, albeit the most important, in a detailed fictional autobiography in which the author transmuted her own experience into high art. In this work the plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, but possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage. She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order which circumscribes her life and position.