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Book Summary 
As bubbly as champagne and delectable as wedding cake, Once and for All, Sarah Dessen's thirteenth novel, is set in the world of wedding planning, where crises are routine. 

Louna, daughter of famed wedding planner Natalie Barrett, has seen every sort of wedding: on the beach, at historic mansions, in fancy hotels and clubs. Perhaps that's why she's cynical about happily-ever-after endings, especially since her own first love ended tragically. When Louna meets charming, happy-go-lucky serial dater Ambrose, she holds him at arm's length. But Ambrose isn't about to be discouraged, now that he's met the one girl he really wants. 

Sarah Dessen’s many, many fans will adore her latest, a richly satisfying, enormously entertaining story that has everything—humor, romance, and an ending both happy and imperfect, just like life itself.

Flo's Review
Sarah Dessen's novels are like a warm hug. Seriously, that is the feeling I get when I read them. Like, "yes, life is crazy and sometimes sad, but you are warm inside this friendly embrace. And here, have some chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven."

Once and For All particularly spoke to me because it is about a family that runs a wedding planning business -- and I am in the middle of planning my own wedding. But along with that, it addresses the questions of forever and second chances. Louna was a little too reticent and inflexible to me at times, but she was realistic based on the trauma she experienced.  I adored Ethan and Ambrose: Ethan for his perfection, and Ambrose for his imperfection. They were both amazingly lovable characters. Also, can I hire William to run my life?! I love him!

I listened to this one on audio and the narrator did a wonderful job. Seriously, I can't love on this book enough. All the warm fuzzies! If you love Sarah's other books, this one won't disappoint. And if you've never read any of hers, this wouldn't be a bad one to start with.


Thank you to Penguin Random House for providing me with the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Flo's Review
I went into the library a couple of weeks ago to return a book and saw this audiobook on display. I grabbed it on a whim. As I was driving home listening to it, I thought, "I don't know if I can do 12 + hours with this narrator. She talks so slow." Let me tell you, today as I was driving around everywhere and not even caring because it meant I could listen to more of the story, it didn't even seem to me that she was speaking slowly. Usually my audiobook limit is about 7 CDs, 8 hours. This one was 10 CDs and almost 13 hours. But I was so engaged in the story that it didn't feel long at all.

Sydney Stanford is used to being invisible. Her brother, Peyton, has gotten in scores of trouble with the law, which culminated in him hitting and paralyzing a teenage boy while driving drunk. He is now in prison for it. Sydney's mom is a planner and likes to spend her time organizing things around Peyton. Her Dad works a lot and usually just goes along with what his wife says. Sydney spends her days obsessing over the fake version of The Real World and being creeped out by her brother's best friend Ames.

But this book is about Sydney's journey from invisibility to visibility; from being looked over to looking out for others; from sitting back and taking it to standing up and taking action. She starts by switching schools from the fancy prep school she and her brother went to to the larger Jackson High. Here she fast becomes friends with the Chatham family.

As a writer, this story inspires me and scares me. I am writing a YA contemp. This is the level I am striving for. Sarah Dessen's characters are not just characters. By the end of the story, I felt like I intimately knew this family and their friends. Like I could walk out of the door of my apartment and see Laila, Mac, Eric and Irv hanging out and I would already feel like part of the fold. Sydney's mom made me so mad and Ames really creeped me out. I developed legit feelings for these people!

I've confessed in the past having trouble with Sarah Dessen's flashbacks. Saint Anything is not without them. But they didn't really annoy me here. Maybe because I was expecting them? Or maybe because the flashbacks were usually short snippets and not lengthy scenes?

Saint Anything also takes a couple of different-than-average viewpoints, which I like. First, with the saints. The saints are talked about a bit and play a decent role in the weaving of the story. Yet not in a full-on religious way. I think no matter what your religious beliefs, it wouldn't be hard for you to get on board with the idea of saints and their roles in the lives of some of these characters. Secondly, we are seeing the fully human side of the perpetrator of the crime. We are all familiar with the idea that the victim is not in isolation -- whatever happened to him or her affects his/her family and friends. But this looks at the family and friends of the drunk driver. They are deeply affected, too. Sydney definitely is.

Mac Chatham. <3

I just finished this tonight and am already in full book hangover mode! I kind of what to go ahead and pick up another Sarah Dessen book. Which one do you recommend?

Jacque's Review:

I read Lock and Key and The Truth About Forever last year and decided to add another Dessen book to my Top 10 Books I Resolve To Read in 2013 Challenge.

In typical Sarah Dessen fashion, This Lullaby is a stand alone YA Contemporary.  Remy and her friends just graduated from high school and are enjoying their last summer before they each head their own way for college. Remy's father was a musician, but she never had a relationship with him.  He left her mother before she was born and died when she was a toddler.  Her mother is now on her fifth marriage, so Remy has had a very unstable home life to say the least.  The revolving door of step-fathers has left her with a very cynical and almost non-existent belief in love.

Dexter is the lead singer of a band that recently moved into the area.  Remy has a rule against dating musicians, but before she knows it...they begin dating.  Dexter is the complete opposite of Remy, but for some reason things work.  Could Remy actually fall in love with someone?  Could Miss Type A, the obsessive compulsive neat freak, fall in love with someone who can't even keep his shoes tied?

Personally, I loved Dexter.  He is tall, lanky, and clumsy, but he has a killer personality.  He is funny, optimistic, and sensitive.  The road to happiness is not an easy one.  Remy needs to come to terms with her beliefs and feelings, which requires a complete 180 if the relationship between her and Dexter will last beyond the summer.

If you are a Sarah Dessen fan, this is definitely worth reading.  I just wish for once she would write an extra chapter...or maybe a novella to let us know how her characters are doing 6 months, a year, three years from now.  I am able to come up with the perfect ending in my head, which is probably her intent, but putting it in writing for all of us to gush over would be greatly appreciated.

The definition of FREEDOM from Wise Webster:

Somehow, and I'm not sure how I did, I ended up with two copies of When It Happens by Susane Colasanti. So I'm giving away one! Susane Colasanti is interesting to me in that I am with her like I was with Sarah Dessen for the longest time -- I've heard great things about her books to the point that that I have even bought a few, but I've never read one. If you've read any of Susane's books, which one should I read first, or which one do you think is her best one?

This giveaway is international, and ever via the Rapplecopter below:
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Then, please, do Hop On:

I decided to post my review of The Truth About Forever, even though Flo has already reviewed it, because our opinions are DRASTICALLY different.

This story is about a high school girl named Macy and her mother, who are still struggling with the sudden death of Macy's father, which occurred a year and a half prior to the start of the book.  Instead of living their lives, they have established a routine.  Both her mother and her boyfriend Jason are control freaks.  They want everything in their lives to be perfect.  For her mother, it is a defense mechanism.  Rather than deal with her feelings of loss she has thrown herself into her work and expects nothing short of perfection from both herself and her daughter.

We learn throughout this book that perfection is not necessarily desirable.  Once Macy meets a team of caterers (Delia, Bert, Wes, Monica, and Kristy) and starts working for them, she sees what has been missing from her life since her father's death.  She finally develops true friendships and begins to live her life on her own terms.  Catering is a very chaotic business and she soon thrives in dealing with the unexpected.

One night, Wes and Macy begin a game of truth.  It is like truth or dare, but there are no dares.  They ask each other questions and the only rule is that they must tell the truth.  The game continues whenever they are together and they become very close friends.  They learn that they have far more in common with one another than Macy first thought.  They are both in relationships that are sort of on hold, so there isn't any pressure on their relationship.  Macy feels that they are just really good friends, but she eventually can't deny that her feelings for him are more than that, but is it too late?

I really enjoy Sarah Dessen's style of writing and found this to be another exceptional story.  Both of her books that I have read have had a wonderful message to them.  The characters are far from perfect, but they all have so much personality.  I will definitely read another one of her books and I would highly recommend this one.  I gave it 4 stars on GoodReads, but it is really worth 4.5 stars.  If there was a little more Noah Shaw or Lucas Delos to this story, I definitely would have given it 5 stars.  A little more detail towards the end of the book about the love story is all that was needed for me to give it 5 stars.

Flo's Review

This was a great story. So let me talk about what I didn't like first and get it out of the way so I can end this review with the good stuff. Having heard lots of great things about Sarah Dessen, any and all of her books sat on my TBR for awhile -- to the point that whenever I found a good deal on one, I bought it. Hence, I own at least 4 and had never read one. For our BookNerd Lent Challenge, I finally picked up The Truth About Forever. And I didn't like it -- mainly because the majority of the part of the story that I made it through was spent in flashbacks and not forward motion. Unfortunately, I discovered with Lock and Key that this is Sarah Dessen's writing style. I do not know what she has against chronological order. But Lock and Key skipped around SO much. It was present, then it last week, then it was present, then it was this earlier morning, then it was two days ago, then it was when Ruby was a kid, then it was present again. Seriously?!?! Please explain to me the need to write a scene happening in the present and then flashback to a  time period that was earlier that morning?!?! I don't understand! Can you not just start the story in the morning and carry on with the day?!?! As you can tell, this lack of chronological order annoyed the CRAP out of me. But I came to love these characters. Each and every one of them. Ruby. Cora. Jamie -- how can you NOT love Jamie?!. Nate. Olivia. Gervais. Like Jamie, I was pleasantly surprised with how well Ruby transformed. But she wasn't the only one -- Cora, Gervais, Nate. I liked the themes in the book, how it discussed the idea of family and how the idea of the key was woven into Ruby's journey. I finished this book with a smile on my face, so happy that all these characters who I now loved were going to live out happy endings. So, will I read another Sarah Dessen book? Maybe. But honestly -- I don't know.

Jacque's Review:

Lock and Key is a stand alone contemporary YA novel.  That sentence alone should tell you this is not your typical YA book.  The protagonist, Ruby, is a 17 year old girl who is a senior in high school.  She has been living alone for ten years with her mother who is divorced, has a substance abuse problem, and is clearly not a good role model.  She attends school all day and helps her mother work in the evenings just to meet their basic needs.  Living under these circumstances has left her very guarded and suspicious of others. 

Jacque came up with this challenge. We all have those books that we put on our TBR pile, and somehow they just keep getting pushed back. It makes you wonder...what book started your TBR pile? What's at the very bottom? If you have a Goodreads account, finding the answer can be as easy as pulling up your "To Read" pile and looking at the first item. In my case, I needed a new audiobook for my morning & nightly commutes, so I grabbed the bottom 3 on CD.


That's how I got to The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen. Ever since I started book blogging, and probably even before, I had heard about her stories. She has a lot of books and they are all in the contemporary YA chick lit vein. Perfect! I love it. She has been likened to Elizabeth Scott, whose books I have read a couple of and really enjoyed. Whenever I would find one of Sarah Dessen's books on sale, I would grab it. Thus, I currently own 3 to 4 of her titles, and I have never read one of them. So, of the books I had, I checked out which one seemed to be the most popular, and The Truth About Forever won.

Unfortunately, I found that I did not like this book, and I had to abandon it after almost 130 pages. I was trying to hang on...but I just couldn't. In the 130 pages I read...not much has happened! The story has just barely started. I found descriptions that could be a page, or at most two, dragged on and on and on for no reason. For example, there is a part of the book where Macy, the protagonist, is discussing her Dad's love of those infomercial gadgets that you can order from Home Shopping Network late at night. This could have been stated, then an example or two shared, and we would have gotten the point. But she talked about it for waaaaay longer than she needed to. I didn't feel that we needed detail and explanation of pretty much every single item that her Dad had bought. There were other parts of the story where the same thing happened -- a scene was waaaay longer than it needed to be. I get that cute dialogue really helps you to know the characters in a "show don't tell" kind of way. But the story also needs to move forward and a conversation about nothing really that goes on and on and on feels unnecessary to me.

The other thing that I did not enjoy were the extensive flashbacks. I understand that we need context and background. But if you want to talk about the past so much, set the story in the past. There were so many flashbacks in this book that, as I said before, the story itself was crawling forward. It felt like it didn't go anywhere between the extra long random dialogue, the scenes of unnecessary over description, and the flashbacks interrupting the story all the time. Seriously...how I mentioned I stopped around page 130? Enough of the actual story had happened that it felt like it should be page 27. In all the write ups and descriptions, I kept reading about this great love interest named Wes. I'm sure he's swoon-worthy and all that --but really?! If he is a main character, why haven't he and Macy had ANY real interactions and I'm supposedly 34% through with the book?!

I will say, I bet if I had stuck with it through to the end, it would probably be really neat to see the transition in Macy. Also, the characters do capture your heart: Bert, with the Bertmobile; Delia with "DearGodPleaseI'mBeggingYou"; crazy, bubbly Kristy. I did enjoy all the scenes when Macy was hanging out with the Wish crew.

I am not sure if I will try another Sarah Dessen book. I should, since I own 3 more. But I was talking with a friend on Twitter and she shared a similar reaction to another one of her books. I'm not sure what to do here.

Any Sarah Dessen fans out there? Can you, I don't know, leave me a comment? Any one else? Thoughts?