Dessen, Sarah (2008). Lock and key. NY: Viking Children’s Books. 432 pages.
Sarah Dessen’s popularity among the patrons who compete with me for YA materials at my library is evidenced by the amount of time it took me to finally get my hands on this book. It’s been pretty much a year since publication, and I’m finally getting my grubby paws on a copy.
I count myself among the legion of Sarah Dessen fans and, as such, find little in her novels to really disappoint. Sure, there was the cheesy artwork created by Wes, the love interest of The truth about forever, and the sometimes self-conscious hipsterness of Dexter, the love interest from This lullaby. But then, there’s also the sense of place that Dessen is so adept at evoking, and the little details of everyday life that sneak into her prose in sometimes poignant ways.
At any rate, this (not really) latest novel begins with seventeen-year-old Ruby’s arrival at the home of her older sister Cora and her husband Jamie. Following her substance abusing mother’s disappearance, Ruby had been attempting to live on her own. When a neighbor discovers she is alone (and living in rapidly deteriorating conditions), Ruby is sent to the home of the sister she hasn’t seen in nearly 10 years.
What I thought was going to be a country-mouse-city-mouse story (Cora and her husband are well-off) complete with obligatory prep school trial by fire actually avoided all of those well-worn tropes in favor of a more subtle exploration of Ruby’s and Cora’s different understandings of their childhood and their mother. Ruby’s growing friendship with a neighbor leads to the realization that he is being abused by his father and it is this awareness that causes Ruby to examine her own past with more critical eyes.
A longer novel that name-drops characters from earlier Dessen novels (Rogerson, anyone?), Lock and key is nonetheless a solid Dessen offering. Girl-centric, introspective (but not annoyingly so), mildly romantic (but not in a cutesy way), and cautiously optimistic, this is another novel that sets the bar for would-be competitors like Maureen Johnson and Rachel Cohn.