Phew. Okay. Saint Anything was way less heartwrenchingly dire than Dreamland!
I loved the ongoing debate about what the band should be called; reminds me of the Zits comic in which Jeremy’s mom offers the band some goat cheese pizza during practice, and “goat cheese pizza” thus becomes the name of the band.
I’m always impressed by Dessen’s fake world. At least some of the time she reuses the same town and high schools, which makes the places feel familiar and real even if they’re not. Her world also has its own shops, restaurants, brand names and pop stars. The culture her teen characters inhabit is specific and authentic without being real. It isn’t tied to a specific place and time.
I have noticed technology creep in over the years, though, which might give readers a way to place the setting in time. For example, the characters didn’t have smartphones in earlier books… but nobody had smartphones in 1996 when Dessen published That Summer! The characters; computers and phones aren’t an important part of the novels, but teens reading the earlier ones might scratch their heads wondering why tech isn’t as important in the characters’ lives as it is in their own.
When and Why I Read Saint Anything
I’ve read all Sarah Dessen’s books so far.
Genre: fiction (YA)
Date started / date finished: 04-Mar-17 to 06-Mar-17
Length: 417 pages
ISBN: 9780147516039 (paperback)
Originally published in: 2015
Amazon link: Saint Anything
