Along For The Ride by Sarah Dessen is a coming-of-age romance novel that follows Auden West through her summer of the unexpected. Auden is smart and has only ever focused on school and getting good grades. She never really had a childhood because her parents, now divorced, didn’t believe in that sort of thing. Her mother, an award-winning author, and professor was always focused on her work and expected Auden to do the same. Her father had one great best-selling novel years ago and hasn’t been able to produce anything since. After the divorce, he moved to a beachside town named Colby, where he married a much younger woman, Heidi, and just welcomed a new baby.
Upset with her life as it is, Auden decides to take her stepmother’s offer and spend the summer in Colby. While there she learns that there is a lot more to life than education. She gets a fun job, makes real friends, and even meets a boy.
Eli is grieving from an accident that wasn’t his fault and has closed himself off from the world. He no longer hangs out with his friends or rides BMX like he used to. Instead, he spends his days working at the local bike shop and his nights riding around town. When he and Auden meet they begin spending their nights together hanging out and start to form a unique connection.
I really enjoyed this book and thought that it was very well written. Dessen implied lots of imagery in her text and I could imagine what the beachside town of Colby looked like. I really enjoyed her character development from start to finish and could not put this book down once I started reading it.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes the typical romance book/Sarah Dessen storyline. A girl having issues at home goes to spend the summer with a distant relative. While there she meets lots of new and unusual people, including a boy. She begins doing things that she never would have before and everything is going great. That is until something goes wrong and she is forced to face the issues of her past.