Along for the Ride

            I’m reading a book called “Along for the Ride” by Sarah Dessen. The book is about a girl named Auden who is going to live with her dad, her stepmother and their new baby for the summer before she goes to college.

            In this book I noticed that Auden’s parents have weighed her down her entire life. Her mother’s life is in academics and that’s all that matters to her. Auden says she never went out with the other kids to play she just sat and listened to her mothers gathers where she talked about her dissertations and all the academic work she was doing. Auden said she figured out a long time ago that the only way to impress or get any attention from her parents was to get good grades but even that didn’t always work. She said that even from kinder garden she was stressed out about her grades. She never really had a childhood because her parents basically forced her into their way of life. Her dad is writer and stays in his study all day writing his book when Auden is living with his and his wife. He doesn’t even take the time to bond with his daughter, he’s too focused on his work and Auden doesn’t ever stand up to him.

            I think that her experience in Colby (which is the town her dad lives in) is going to change her. I think that she will evolve and maybe even break out of her parent’s shell.  Before she came to Colby she said that every word out of Heidi’s her stepmother) mouth annoyed her but after seeing how tired she is with the new baby and how her dad wouldn’t help her, she started to work and Heidi’s store and help her with the baby, which Auden said it would never be something that she would think about doing before she came to Colby and that her mother would be disgusted Auden needs to become her own person. She can’t always live in her parents shadow it won’t work, she will be miserable. But I think that her life in Colby could change all that.

            I’m reading “Along for the Ride” by Sarah Dessen which is about a shy, focused girl named Auden who has always lived in her parents shadow and now is moving away from her mother for the summer and is moving in with her dad and her stepmother.