When I first saw Sarah Dessen's book, Just Listen at a store in Bridgewater it was brand new. They stacked fresh, hardcover copies of it in the very front of the young adult section and I remember looking at it and thinking that I liked the cover. The funny thing is that if I first saw it in stores now I would probably scoff and walk right past it instead. But I think I was about fourteen at the time and I guess girly covers attracted me then. I even remember reading the back cover and thinking about how much I liked the description(which I would also probably scoff at now)...
Annabel Greene is the girl who has everything. At least, that's what she portrays in her modeling shoots. But Annabel's life and her older sister's eating disorder is weighing down the entire family. Isolated and ostracized at school and at home, Annabel retreats into silent acceptance. Then she meets Owen-intense, music-obsessed, and determined to always tell the truth. And with his guidance, Annabel learns to just listen to herself and gains the courage to speak honestly. But will she be able to tell everyone what really happened the night she and Sophie stopped being friends?
For reasons unbeknownst to me, I decided not to buy it that day, instead going home with something probably by Scott Westerfield. A while later I was recommended one of Dessen's earlier pieces, The Truth About Forever, bought it, read it, and liked it. After that, I came across Just Listen again at my local Borders. It was older and now being sold in the much cheaper paperback form and I finally decided to buy it.
The funny thing is that when I first read the book I didn't connect it to myself at all. There are still many things in it that If you knew me and read the book would make you probably ask what the fuck I'm talking about. Unlike Annabel, I am not a model, I don't have three sisters, I don't hate techno, blahblahbleeblah. At the time of first reading Just Listen The truth is, most of the parallels developed overtime, many of them being small but the fact that there are now so many is almost insane to me. I was probably fifteen when I first read that book and had put it on my shelf and mostly forgotten about it since, so it's only recently that I made the connections.
After an (personal) event a couple months ago, I remembered the book and immediately grabbed it off my shelf and read it for the second time. I think I was probably half scared throughout the duration of my second reading while realizing how much my own life had become like it. I decided to read it for a third time during a five hour car ride to Ocean City last week and was once again freaked out. There is this one passage on page 270 that especially irked me. I know it's dumb and lame and cliche and all that cal but it felt like Dessen had stolen my brain from saaay June, cracked it open like an egg, and slapped the yolk of it right into her story...
Just Listen, I believe, was kind of a "look-into-the-future" book for me. I can't fathom now how spooky it would have been if I knew the first time I read it that I was, in a nutshell, reading pieces of my own horoscope. I think I've grown out of most ultra-girly, young adult novels but I'm pretty sure this one is going to stick with me, whether I like it or not. And I realize now that I've probably shared way to much on the interwebbzz with people I don't know and really hate (blehhatechyu) but oh well, I don't really care, this took me a while to write...
I should probably care more
-Hayley
p.s. I need a group of yuppies to acompany me when I don't feel like being around people.
