Along for the Ride

Auden is a loner by nature, an academic who relieves her insomnia by driving around town at midnight. The Summer before she is to begin college, she decides to get away from her academically rigid mother and visit her father, step-mother and new baby step-sister in their small beach town. The result is a coming-of-age story that’s impossible to put down. The writing is excellent — engrossing and easy to make personal connections to the characters. And that’s important, because Auden is a complex character: socially awkward, she hasn’t even learned to ride a bike, much less make connections with other young adults. That all changes when she meets Eli, a young man with similarly awkward leanings who opens a new world to Auden, including bowling, food fights, and more. Written for a teen audience, Along for the Ride is similar in formula to other Dessen books. Still, it is no silly romance: it tackles difficult issues in a sensitive manner.