A review by abinthebooks
Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen
5.0
Going into this book I really don't know what I was expecting. A cute, 3 star, YA contemporary, I guess? I read a book by this author a month or two ago, and I really liked it. But this book is 10 years old, and I wasn't really expecting much. I was entirely wrong about that. Entirely!
What I got instead, was so much more. First of all, I want to applaud [a: Sarah Dessen|2987|Sarah Dessen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1372181953p2/2987.jpg] for making me cry, more than once, might I add. This is one of those books that makes you feel hopeless and heartbroken and inexplicably sad for the MC. She went through so much, and I sympathized with her in a way I do with only characters I care about immensely. By the way, the MC Ruby, was great all around.
For the first 200 pages of this book Ruby is sad, lost, so unsure and untrustworthy of herself and everyone around her. She'd never had kindness just given to her. She'd never had kindness ever, and for her to realize people care about her, and overcome the abuse, neglect, and trauma that she went through made me so happy.
I also love the side characters in this book, every last one of them. The side characters don't feel like side characters, because they are written so so well. Ruby's sister Cora is such an awesome character, and we really get to see her development. Jamie is great too, he's honestly just a human Golden Retriever. The dog, oh god, Roscoe is adorable and I fell in love with him. Olivia, and everyone else, and Nate. God I love Nate.
Nate is also a character who goes through a lot of trauma and heartbreak, and I loved him and cried for him, as much as I did Ruby. He's such a great person, and character, and the things he went through, absolutely broke my fragile heart.
I just love this book. The way it portrays emotional, mental, and physical trauma, and many other hard hitting subjects, whilst also being funny and uplifting in the end, was something else. I just loved this book with my whole heart.
The ending was a bit cheesy, but eh what can you do. It was happy and that's all that matters to me.
Definitely reading more from Sarah Dessen, because I've loved the two books I've read from her so far.
What I got instead, was so much more. First of all, I want to applaud [a: Sarah Dessen|2987|Sarah Dessen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1372181953p2/2987.jpg] for making me cry, more than once, might I add. This is one of those books that makes you feel hopeless and heartbroken and inexplicably sad for the MC. She went through so much, and I sympathized with her in a way I do with only characters I care about immensely. By the way, the MC Ruby, was great all around.
For the first 200 pages of this book Ruby is sad, lost, so unsure and untrustworthy of herself and everyone around her. She'd never had kindness just given to her. She'd never had kindness ever, and for her to realize people care about her, and overcome the abuse, neglect, and trauma that she went through made me so happy.
I also love the side characters in this book, every last one of them. The side characters don't feel like side characters, because they are written so so well. Ruby's sister Cora is such an awesome character, and we really get to see her development. Jamie is great too, he's honestly just a human Golden Retriever. The dog, oh god, Roscoe is adorable and I fell in love with him. Olivia, and everyone else, and Nate. God I love Nate.
Nate is also a character who goes through a lot of trauma and heartbreak, and I loved him and cried for him, as much as I did Ruby. He's such a great person, and character, and the things he went through, absolutely broke my fragile heart.
I just love this book. The way it portrays emotional, mental, and physical trauma, and many other hard hitting subjects, whilst also being funny and uplifting in the end, was something else. I just loved this book with my whole heart.
The ending was a bit cheesy, but eh what can you do. It was happy and that's all that matters to me.
Definitely reading more from Sarah Dessen, because I've loved the two books I've read from her so far.