Teenreads.com -- LOCK AND KEY by Sarah Dessen

LOCK AND KEY
Sarah Dessen
Speak/Penguin Young Readers Group
Fiction
Paperback: 9780142414729
Hardcover: 9780670010882
432 pages

Ruby can’t wait until she turns 18. Instead of yearning for independence, she is looking forward to the day when she legally will be considered an adult so no one will be able to put her in foster care. Her mother left a few months ago, and she has been living alone, trying to work and finish high school.

Ruby thought she was managing just fine on her own. She worked at an airport returning lost luggage to its owners, was pulling high enough grades to stay under the radar of administrators, and had a friend with benefits. True, her house had plumbing trouble, and the washer and dryer broke, forcing her to hang clothes in the kitchen to dry. But she believed she could make it a few more months. When instead she is found living in the hovel her house had become, she is pulled out by state services and sent to live with her sister Cora.

Cora has not been a part of Ruby’s life for a number of years. She left Ruby and her erratic mother for college, and Ruby had not heard from her since, except to receive a notice that she graduated. Her husband Jamie is a famous businessman who designed the hugely popular social networking website that everyone uses. Ruby finds it hard to fathom that the nice easygoing guy who obsesses over his new backyard fish pond is a multimillionaire, or that her sister is an attorney who wants to have a baby. And she can’t believe that she is now living in their house as they play the role of parents.

Ruby’s new school, which is on the other side of town from her old one, may as well be on another planet. Where before Ruby regularly smoked pot and just wanted to finish classes, now she has counselors advising her to apply to college. She becomes friends with Nate, the handsome jock living behind her, and is actually envied by other girls because they go to school every day together and hang out. She gets a job at the mall assisting a neurotic jewelry designer and helps start a high-selling trend in necklaces. Ruby finds herself drawn to all these new people and getting involved in their lives in a way she has never done with others before. Her mother was always moving them on when money ran out, or hiding them away, so she never had friends she could trust or who trusted her.

Nate quickly becomes even more important, and as they grow closer, Ruby realizes that his life is almost as troubled as hers used to be. Helping someone else when she herself refused assistance from others for so long is a completely alien concept to her, and she is not sure when and how to begin. But she does recognize that she is no longer comfortable staying in the background of life.

Sarah Dessen knows the key to emotions --- as is displayed in LOCK AND KEY and earlier notable titles such as SOMEONE LIKE YOU and THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREVER --- and is skilled at showing hope and promise in situations that seem without both. Even if readers are not dealing with the same issues as Ruby, her feelings will resonate. Problems with friends and family are not unusual, and Ruby’s constant doubts and mistakes are not limited to her situation either. It’s easy to care about Ruby, her also-troubled sister Cora and quirky husband Jamie as they fumble trying to build a home together and sort out past conflicts.

While writing about Ruby’s broken home and its resulting problems, Dessen also shows how a seemingly well-to-do father and son in a fancy neighborhood are handling their own perilous situation. No character is without obstacles to overcome, yet Ruby finds that giving part of herself only strengthens her as a person in this multilayered novel.

--- Reviewed by Amy Alessio

Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.