A Total God-send

This past Tuesday, I relayed to a friend, over a bowl of pasta and the cuteness of her kids, how my junior year of high school was a horribly angry year for me. As a depressed sixteen year old in a new high school that was twice the size of her previous one, I found myself quite privy to that of the quiet and voluntary recluse because in all honesty I did not want to be where I was:

The unfamiliar territory of a predominantly white neighborhood with it's predominantly white school and cut off from everything that I was comfortable with. I was a junior who felt like a freshman and it, for lack of a better word, sucked.

So what did I do to combat the ever-present loneliness that I felt during that first semester? I did what any aspiring writer and asian nerd did. I went to the library. I went to the library and walked around and about the shelves looking for something to distract me during the dead hours of my day, which seemed to be in surplus seeing as I didn't have that many friends. It was there that I came across Sarah Dessen and her flair for writing young-adult fiction. All stories of girls who had some type of insecurity in tandem with a strained relationship from the rest of her family, most especially her mother, and suddenly I found solace.

Peace of mind in the spaces between the ink and it saved me in High School because somehow reading works of fiction based on characters who were thrust into unfamiliar situations, stumbling about in their insecurity, but somehow coming out with the realizations needed to triumph was enlightening. It was inspirational and not only that, the books were great conversation starters.

That's how I met my first real friend who's name was also Sarah. haha go figure.

And so, I became faithful throughout that year. returning to the library at first every week to check out a new book of Dessen's, before spreading myself out farther so as to give myself ample time with the characters.

Haven, Halley, Colie, Caitlin, Remy, Macy, Annabel, and then Ruby.

All girls who live separately within Sarah Dessen's universe, but all are interconnected. Their lives, their friends, their situations all overlapping as mentionings within each others' existance.

By the time I had finished Junior year, in much much MUCH better shape than I had started. I had gone through all of Dessen's books and had found, not only friends, but my passion for writing reignited. Sarah Dessen and her savviness had been the comfort I needed in my time of self-pity and she has most definitely become one of my favorite authors.

After high school though, I was saddened that I had run out of her works to read, seeing as I had spent many a night burning the midnight oil only to finish too early. That's the problem with being an avid reader...when you finish a "series" you tend to find an emptiness inside as the reality of all the time you had devoted is now finished. Time to move on. But thankfully, sometimes you the ball just keeps rolling.

Most recently I found Sarah Dessen's newest novel which just erupted onto the scene about four months ago. *sigh* it's been so long since I've had a new piece of work from her in my hands, but I gotta tell you, I missed it. And though the story is more or less similar. Girl with some type of fault that keeps her emotionally detached from the world around her and a mother that is just unforgiving and misunderstands everything making it seem as if the whole world is the same way, as well as a boy that comes about to shake the whole world up, it is comforting. Like remembering a a song or tv show you used to love.

And so, here I am, it's been seven hours since I bought this book, four hours since I sat down and cracked it open to begin reading.

I'm already on page 142 of the 383 pages.

*sigh* feels good to be back in my comfort zone. The reality of good fiction writing never ceases to amaze me. You know, people can say what they want. They can go off and praise the new-age hard-hitting edgy fiction that's been coming out lately, even praise the non-fiction but written like-fiction stuff that seems to be showing up just as often, but you can't deny that, like a good song that can cheer you up on a bad day, it's books like Sarah Dessen's that warm the soul just the same.

Forget the crazy and obscure existential stuff that supposed to be deep and make you think! Nothing is more true than girl who has been hurt by boys or family or even herself but soon encounters a guy who can change everything. A guy who has always been there, even if they never really saw him. He comes and seems to know exactly what she needs. Seems to help her, forces her to face the truth about herself, and gives her hope that there is good in this world. And happy endings actually happen a lot more often than we think. We're just not opening our eyes.

And that boy...that message, that story...it's all God...God-sent at least. haha.

love it. Huge thanks to Sarah Dessen, and thank God for sending her.