7 Reasons Sarah Dessen’s Saint Anything Is a Must-Read
Sarah Dessen is one of the most iconic YA authors out there, and for good reason. Her books are amazing. Her characters are so real they feel like your best friends (or worst enemies). They’re familiar because they feel like us, or people we know, or people we’ve heard about from our friends. Each of her books revolves around painful, relatable themes: divorced parents, dead parents, absent parents, eating disorders, being outshone by siblings and friends, losing friends and finding new ones, falling in love with the wrong person, falling in love with the right person and not knowing how to make it work.
Saint Anything
Hardcover
$13.73
$19.99
Saint Anything
By Sarah Dessen
Hardcover
$13.73
$19.99
And if you’ve never read a Sarah Dessen book in your life, her newest, Saint Anything, is a great place to start. After Sydney’s brother, Peyton, gets into a bad drunk-driving accident, seriously harming another kid, her family life falls apart. Sydney’s parents have always been more focused on her brother and his self-destructive habits than on her—and now that the worst has happened and he’s actually in jail, she learns she’ll have to go elsewhere to find comfort. Whether you’re a diehard fan or a Dessen newbie, Saint Anything is a must-read. Here are seven reasons you’ve got to add it to your shelf.
Sydney
Sydney is a down-to-earth suburbanite whose gutsy nature has been stifled by her family dynamic. She’s incredibly relatable because, like all of us, she sometimes feels invisible and frustrated with her parents, yet eager for a chance to change her life. She dares herself to take risks and discover new things, and she learns to trust people even when her family betrays her at every turn.
The sibling factor
Sydney feels overshadowed by her big brother, Peyton. He’s the one who has always taken risks, who has always been the brave one, and ultimately, the one who’s always gotten more attention from their folks. But in this Dessen book, Peyton isn’t a hero she needs to compete with. Quite the opposite…
The reality of consequences
Peyton’s drug addiction, his recovery, and his relapse are what lead him to a serious prison sentence. After staying sober for months, he relapses, gets wasted, and hits a kid riding his bike home from a friend’s house. The victim, David Ibarra, loses his ability to walk. Though Sydney’s parents, her mother in particular, don’t seem able to face the reality of Peyton’s destructive behavior, Sydney feels its weight on her shoulders, especially when her parents treat her as if she’s a delinquent herself.
The friendships
Sydney’s life is changing rapidly, including a move from private to public school. But she manages to keep her old friends, and it’s heartwarming and realistic to see the way she truly work at maintaining her relationships. She knows it when she’s being distant, she tries to fix it, and she finds ways to build her new social circle while retaining the old one.
The realistic portrayal of family illness
The first friend Sydney makes at her new public school is Layla, a smart and funny French-fry enthusiast whose family owns a pizza parlor. Her mother has multiple sclerosis, and her big sister, Rosie, has also suffered from addiction. The reality of Layla’s family is that its matriarch’s health is constantly declining, MS being a degenerative disease. Though her children—Layla, brother Mac, and Rosie—live their lives, they’re also constantly on their phones, bracing for bad news about their mom or checking in to see if she needs their help. Dessen beautifully portrays the way all members of a family have to pull together when a member needs extra help.
The funny
In perhaps the book’s funniest scenes, Sydney goes to a show at an all-ages club to see Mac’s band play. Eric, the frontman and Layla’s ex, is hilariously pretentious. He wears a fedora. He discusses (at length) the irony of playing hits by a Bieber-like heartthrob. Dessen knows books tackling tough issues need some lightness, too, and she delivers. (There’s also, late in the book, an Easter egg for Dessen’s longtime readers: someone says the line “Hate Spinnerbait,” which goes all the way back to Dessen’s This Lullaby.)
The romance
From my perspective, it’s clear who Sydney is going to end up with. But the romance is deliciously drawn out, impeded by both Sydney’s parents and a very creepy friend of Peyton’s who manages to squirm his way into their family and make Sydney feel unsafe (with good reason). Sydney’s romantic life is mature, it feels real, and it’s subtly drawn, instead of being the novel’s main focus. Instead, Dessen sticks with Sydney and her struggles to be who she wants to be, and to get the recognition she deserves. She doesn’t need to shine, she just wants to be seen. And the person who really sees her is the one who falls in love with her.
And if you’ve never read a Sarah Dessen book in your life, her newest, Saint Anything, is a great place to start. After Sydney’s brother, Peyton, gets into a bad drunk-driving accident, seriously harming another kid, her family life falls apart. Sydney’s parents have always been more focused on her brother and his self-destructive habits than on her—and now that the worst has happened and he’s actually in jail, she learns she’ll have to go elsewhere to find comfort. Whether you’re a diehard fan or a Dessen newbie, Saint Anything is a must-read. Here are seven reasons you’ve got to add it to your shelf.
Sydney
Sydney is a down-to-earth suburbanite whose gutsy nature has been stifled by her family dynamic. She’s incredibly relatable because, like all of us, she sometimes feels invisible and frustrated with her parents, yet eager for a chance to change her life. She dares herself to take risks and discover new things, and she learns to trust people even when her family betrays her at every turn.
The sibling factor
Sydney feels overshadowed by her big brother, Peyton. He’s the one who has always taken risks, who has always been the brave one, and ultimately, the one who’s always gotten more attention from their folks. But in this Dessen book, Peyton isn’t a hero she needs to compete with. Quite the opposite…
The reality of consequences
Peyton’s drug addiction, his recovery, and his relapse are what lead him to a serious prison sentence. After staying sober for months, he relapses, gets wasted, and hits a kid riding his bike home from a friend’s house. The victim, David Ibarra, loses his ability to walk. Though Sydney’s parents, her mother in particular, don’t seem able to face the reality of Peyton’s destructive behavior, Sydney feels its weight on her shoulders, especially when her parents treat her as if she’s a delinquent herself.
The friendships
Sydney’s life is changing rapidly, including a move from private to public school. But she manages to keep her old friends, and it’s heartwarming and realistic to see the way she truly work at maintaining her relationships. She knows it when she’s being distant, she tries to fix it, and she finds ways to build her new social circle while retaining the old one.
The realistic portrayal of family illness
The first friend Sydney makes at her new public school is Layla, a smart and funny French-fry enthusiast whose family owns a pizza parlor. Her mother has multiple sclerosis, and her big sister, Rosie, has also suffered from addiction. The reality of Layla’s family is that its matriarch’s health is constantly declining, MS being a degenerative disease. Though her children—Layla, brother Mac, and Rosie—live their lives, they’re also constantly on their phones, bracing for bad news about their mom or checking in to see if she needs their help. Dessen beautifully portrays the way all members of a family have to pull together when a member needs extra help.
The funny
In perhaps the book’s funniest scenes, Sydney goes to a show at an all-ages club to see Mac’s band play. Eric, the frontman and Layla’s ex, is hilariously pretentious. He wears a fedora. He discusses (at length) the irony of playing hits by a Bieber-like heartthrob. Dessen knows books tackling tough issues need some lightness, too, and she delivers. (There’s also, late in the book, an Easter egg for Dessen’s longtime readers: someone says the line “Hate Spinnerbait,” which goes all the way back to Dessen’s This Lullaby.)
The romance
From my perspective, it’s clear who Sydney is going to end up with. But the romance is deliciously drawn out, impeded by both Sydney’s parents and a very creepy friend of Peyton’s who manages to squirm his way into their family and make Sydney feel unsafe (with good reason). Sydney’s romantic life is mature, it feels real, and it’s subtly drawn, instead of being the novel’s main focus. Instead, Dessen sticks with Sydney and her struggles to be who she wants to be, and to get the recognition she deserves. She doesn’t need to shine, she just wants to be seen. And the person who really sees her is the one who falls in love with her.