Overview
He's looking at me like—well, like he wants to look at me.Like he likes what hes sees, and he's smiling and hiw eyes are so blue, even in the faint flow of the porch light they shine, and I nod dumbly, blindly, and then grope for the door handle, telling myself to look away and yet not able to do it.
"Sara," he says, softly, almost hesitantly, and my heart slam-bangs, beating hard, and this is what it's like to want someone you can't have. To want someone you shouldn't even be looking at.
Synopsis
Another sweet and funny coming-of-age novel by the author of bloom; Perfect You; Something, Maybe; and Living Dead Girl.
VOYA
Sarah likes Ryan. Has for years. Ryan is dating Brianna, Sarah's best friend. Sarah avoids Ryan, hides her feelings, and wallows in her guilt for desiring him. Then one night he drives her home alone, and they kiss. Now she is torn between wanting to be with Ryan and not wanting to hurt Brianna. Scott has written a fabulously authentic voice in Sarah. Every girl who has been torn by betraying the unwritten rule in friendship will hear her own thoughts echoed in Sarah's. In a meandering path, Scott brings the readers back and forth in time from eighth grade, when Sarah first begins liking Ryan, to their senior year throughout Brianna and Ryan's relationship, to the current dilemma of Sarah and Ryan wanting to be with one another without hurting Brianna. The love-triangle characters are well developed: Sarah is mousey with loving parents, Brianna is the tragically unloved teen who mimics her mother's behaviors in all of her relationships, and Ryan is the boy who will tear them apart. The ending, while tidy, is realistic. This is a thoroughly enjoyable chick lit title that will appeal to readers of Sarah Dessen and Deb Caletti. Reviewer: Kristin Fletcher-Spear
Editorials
VOYA -
Sarah likes Ryan. Has for years. Ryan is dating Brianna, Sarah's best friend. Sarah avoids Ryan, hides her feelings, and wallows in her guilt for desiring him. Then one night he drives her home alone, and they kiss. Now she is torn between wanting to be with Ryan and not wanting to hurt Brianna. Scott has written a fabulously authentic voice in Sarah. Every girl who has been torn by betraying the unwritten rule in friendship will hear her own thoughts echoed in Sarah's. In a meandering path, Scott brings the readers back and forth in time from eighth grade, when Sarah first begins liking Ryan, to their senior year throughout Brianna and Ryan's relationship, to the current dilemma of Sarah and Ryan wanting to be with one another without hurting Brianna. The love-triangle characters are well developed: Sarah is mousey with loving parents, Brianna is the tragically unloved teen who mimics her mother's behaviors in all of her relationships, and Ryan is the boy who will tear them apart. The ending, while tidy, is realistic. This is a thoroughly enjoyable chick lit title that will appeal to readers of Sarah Dessen and Deb Caletti. Reviewer: Kristin Fletcher-SpearLauren Wiygul
Seventeen-year-old Sarah has been best friends with Brianna forever, but when she starts liking Brianna's boyfriend, their friendship takes a turn for the worse. Sarah knows the Unwritten Rule: "You don't like your best friend's boyfriend." But she can't help but think of him looking at her, holding her hand, and kissing her. Through the eyes and mind of Sarah, Elizabeth Scott tells the honest and realistic story of how high school dating can be complicated and confusing. Sarah has always been the quiet one who never stands up for herself, while Brianna is the outspoken one who gets what she wants. When something happens between Sarah and Ryan one night, Sarah has to live with the guilt of going behind her best friend's back. Does she continue liking her best friend's boyfriend or does she forget about him in order to save her friendship? Reviewer: Lauren WiygulSchool Library Journal
Gr 9 Up—The unwritten rule is plain: "You don't like your best friend's boyfriend." But Sarah does. She likes Ryan a lot, and she has for a very long time. They share a moment at a party, but the next thing she knows, he belongs to Brianna. Then one night, something happens that Sarah can't take back and doesn't want to. She feels guilty, she doesn't want to hurt her friend, but she can't stop thinking about Ryan, either. Character development drives this novel. There isn't much plot, and the opening chapters are a little hard to follow, but the characters are fully realized and their motivation is clear. However, the tone of the writing is more suited to an adult novella than to YA fiction. A slow read that is all too easy to put down and forget about.—Julianna M. Helt, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PAKirkus Reviews
The unwritten rule is that you don't like your best friend's boyfriend-in a romantic sense, anyway. Sarah and Brianna have been best friends since kindergarten. Sarah, sensitive and mousy, has always played sidekick to outgoing, beautiful Brianna. Sarah has also liked Ryan since eighth grade, but she can't break the news now because Brianna and Ryan are dating. Then Sarah and Ryan kiss, and he confesses he likes her, too. Sarah knows that revealing the truth to Brianna will devastate their friendship, but she believes that what she has with Ryan is true love. The love triangle is complex by itself, but Scott gives it extra dimension by adding a painful look at Sarah and Brianna's toxic friendship. Readers need to read between the lines of Sarah's first-person narration to see that even as Sarah provides Brianna a refuge from her verbally abusive parents, Brianna visits that same abuse upon her. They will cheer her growing self-awareness as Sarah sees that she is as deserving of love as Brianna, even if she isn't as bold. (Fiction. 14 & up)From the Publisher
Scott (the reigning mistress of smart yet classically heart-wrenching romance) expands...a vivid study of character and growth that's deliciously festooned with yearning and possibilities...readers looking for tender stolen moments and the flowering of forbidden love will want to curl up with this one. -- The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, May 2010