Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen - ESSENTIAL

Dessen, Sarah Saint Anything, 417 pages.  Viking (Penguin), 2015.  $20.

Language: PG-13 (40 swears, 0 ‘f’); Mature Content: PG-13 (some teen drinking); Violence: G.  

Sydney’s older brother Peyton has always put their family on a roller coaster with his acting out and truble.  Now he has gone so far - paralyzing a young man while driving drunk - that Peyton is in jail.  Sydney has always been the good girl, and she doesn’t want to be bad, but her mother and father are making her pay for Peyton’s bad behavior.  When she transfers to the local high school to get away from the stares at her old private school, Sydney finds a small group of new friends who are willing to let her into their lives and finds a bigger, more loving, definition of family.  Sydney will have to defy her parents and fight for herself or give and understand that they will never see her for who she is and not as a reflection of her brother’s acts.

Sarah Dessen is gold - you need every single book she has ever written. And I love that she doesn’t write her books in a series!

MS, HS - ESSENTIAL.  Cindy, Library Teacher