Lock and Key (Ari Demakis)

Title: Lock and Key
Author: Sarah Dessen
Publisher: Penguin group
Pages:422
My sister recommended this book to me and Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite authors so i wanted to read it.
This is a novel about a 17 year-old girl, Ruby, who's mother abandoned her and she tries to live on her own, but the authorities find out. They send her away to live with her older sister and husband, Ruby has to get used to a whole new lifestyle and school. She also has to make commends with her sister who she has not seen in over 5 years. While Ruby is trying to build a new life, she can't let go of the old one and meets many people along the way who help her adjust. Ruby finds friendship in her new neighbor, Nate, and together they help each other solve their personal problems. Ruby gains new trust and re-establishes a relationship with her sister by the end of the book. She accepts that her mom won't come back and she learns to live with that.
The audience for this novel is high schools girls, I believe this because it relates to what many high school girls are going threw in their lives. The author's writing style of this book is informative, she's not very descriptive or creative she is just telling her story. There weren't many good examples of her informative style it was just basic so my passage that supports it is just an average passage from the novel. Ruby is just getting her lock and key and she realizes she has never thought of an idea like that. "I'd never really thought about my key this way. But in the interest of a sale, I said 'Well,yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you could buy a chain here, then get a key to put on it."(Dessen 243). She expresses her basic talking throughout the book without many descriptions.
The first passage that really struck me was in the middle of the book hen Ruby was discussing switching schools. " 'Switching schools totally sucked for me,' she said, sitting back in her chair. ' I missed everything about my life at Jackson. I still do- so much so that even now, after a year, I haven't really bothered to get settled at Perkins.I don't even have any friends there,' "(Dessen 251). This passage stuck out to me because I know the feeling of switching schools and feeling like you don't fit in. I switched to a new school starting in high school and I felt so scared and lonely because I didn't know anyone at first.
The second passage I chose was about becoming friends and how you establish them. "She made a face at me, then picked up her phone, opening it and hitting a few buttons. The truth was, Olivia and I had never officially become friend. But clearly, somewhere between that ride and the day in the box office, it had happened,"(Dessen 266). This stuck out to me because I don't think you ever officially become friends with someone, I think it just happens naturally and no one has to necessarily has to establish it.
The third passage I chose was about selling the key necklace for the first time. "We sold the first key necklace twenty minutes later, the second, a half hour after that. If I hadn't been there to see it myself, I never would have believed it, but every single customer who came by paused to look at them. Not everyone bought, but clearly they drew people's attention," (Dessen 300). This quote struck me because I'm surprised so many people were interested in key necklaces. I also like how interested the girls were in selling them, it shows they really had pride in their new creation.
The way I interacted with the book was that I could really feel the character's emotions. When she was abandoned and felt alone, I could relate to some times in the past when I have felt the same way. I remember moving and having to adapt to a new place and school and I could understand how Ruby felt. The parts where she felt lost really spoke out to me. I really enjoyed reading this book and I would recommend it to others.