Dessen, Sarah - Lock and Key

Ruby's been living alone with her alcoholic mother ever since her older sister went to college; the two have been going from place to place for as long as she can remember. One day, her mother disappears, the social workers are called in, and suddenly, Ruby's living the older sister she hasn't seen for nearly a decade and her new brother-in-law. She's now in a good private school, and nothing is familiar.

I liked this, but not as much as some of Dessen's other books. I was glad to see that there were actually black characters, though sadly they were confined to being the sassy best friend, and a little talk of class. On the other hand, It didn't go as much into class as I wanted, as Ruby ends up adapting to her new life fairly easily and without much fuss on other people's part.

I love Ruby herself, who's one of Dessen's closed-off, scared-to-be-wounded girls, and I found her reconciliation with Cora to be particularly touching (by "touching," I mean, "I bawled"). On the other hand, the addition of Nate, the guy next door, and his issues made the focus of the book feel a little off. Ruby does finally come to her own by confronting Nate's issues, but I couldn't help feel that the latter part of the book was overtaken by Nate's angst, when I really wanted more about Ruby reconciling her old life with her new one, and especially more about Ruby and Cora.

The descriptions of Jamie, Cora's husband, and his family's over-the-top-ness with regard to communicating and holidays reminds me a lot of my own culture shock when I came here, and I wanted more of an examination of Cora and Ruby's family experience versus Jamie's, without having Jamie's seem too good to be true.

Good, and still recommended, but not one of my favorite Dessens.

Links:
- gwyneira's review

Sunday fooding

I started today off with a trip to the farmers' market, in which I discovered that raspberries and blueberries and the first of the stone fruits are now out! I got the first two, but not the latter, as they weren't sweet enough. And I got my first batch of peas this year from the pea guy, which made me very happy indeed.

Then I headed off to pick up rilina from the airport, and we watched the Vampire Knight anime while I finished hysteriachan's kimono and shelled peas. I usually throw split peas, which are starchy and not sweet, into the rat cage, although because Rilina was watching, I naturally missed every time.

Sadly, Ren has already associated the thunk of peas hitting the wire with "FOOD" and runs to snuffle around excitedly for the peas, even if the pea in question has actually bounced off the cage and onto the floor.

Afterward, we headed out and cafe-hopped to read manga and books and had frittatas and arepas, which the cafe menu said were Venezuelan white cornmeal pancakes, usually about the size of your palm. I got one with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes and another stuffed with beef mechado. Very good. We then went to Red Mango and had yogurt... dished up by a celebrity! Apparently Yul Kwon of Survivor fame sprinkled the berries on our yogurt, though I heard Rilina wrong and didn't figure it out until some girls stood around taking photos with him.

... not that I would have recognized him anyway, as I haven't seen Survivor. Still! Very cool.

( Giant picture of yogurt )

After that, we hopped to yet another cafe and had a little honey pastry and chocolate-raspberry cake. While doing so, Rilina attempted to explain the latest happenings in Tsubasa to me (no spoilers in the comments, please!), which would have worked much better with extensive visual aids, highlighters, and possibly a puppet or two. Needless to say, I am still very confused, albeit a little less confused than before.