Lock and Key
About the Book:
Lock and Key Book
Author: Sarah Dessen
Publisher: Speak; Reprint edition
Publish date: May 14, 2009
ISBN-10: 0142414727
ISBN-13: 9780142414729
Pages: 432 (eBook can have different pages)
Language: English
Genres: Young adult
Review:
Ask 30 people to define “family,” and you’ll get 30 different definitions. Ruby’s definition of family is about to change, and she’s not pretty sure what that means.
For years, Ruby and her mother moved from flat to flat. They lived in random places and confined spaces above other people’s garages. Finally, they find a small yellow house to rent. Ruby’s mother, preferring to drown her distresses in alcohol than deal with them face-to-face, made her daughter give her pretexts to visitors, landlords, and bosses. The older Ruby got, the more her mother hinged on her – and on substances. Ruby became used to her mom waning for a few days now and then. When a week turned into 2, then 3, then a month, Ruby knew her mom wasn’t coming back. She went to work and school and lived alone for months before her proprietors realized what was going on.
With Ruby 7-months away from her 18-birthday, child services stepped in. She is sent to live with her older sister, who hasn’t seen her in 10 years. Cora left for college and, according to their mother, never looked back. Now Cora has a successful career, a husband who is just as successful as her, and a beautiful home, with an energetic little dog to boot. How can Ruby apt into this household, let alone into a new school that’s posh and private? She’s so certain that this could never be her home, her life that she prepares to run away that very first night and go back to the small yellow house. Fate has other plans for her, and so does Nate, the boy next door.
Though Ruby accords to stay put for the time being, she keeps the key to the small yellow house on a chain around her neck. At first, the key is the only thing she allows to fall close to her heart, understanding her sister’s pared responses as lack of concern. She is hesitant how to take her perpetually cheerful brother-in-law, Jamie. How can this complete odder welcome her with open arms? Ruby is a strong girl, but she’s not a saint. She has done number of things she’s not proud of, and she has a persistent strip a mile wide. She is gritty to do things on her own and her refuses to let others help her because she doesn’t want to “owe” them anything.
This storytelling approach fits the feel of the story, letting it to move forward as Ruby lives day by day but still adheres to her past.
Ruby doesn’t think of herself as lost, but she is – and she deserves to be found. Pick up Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen and give it a prominent place on your bookshelf.
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