Just Listen

By: Sarah Dessen

"true friends will always care, no matter how much time passes"

          Often in her books, Sarah Dessen speaks on the questions and concerns of a teenage girl’s heart. Although someone may seem to have the perfect life—with everything nicely planned, clean and without wrinkles—she may actually be tortured and crumpled inside, with a life full of complications, fears and stories. While flipping through pages of an old yearbook, Dessen says she discovered a picture of three blonde girls, apparently sisters, posing by a pool, with what seemed like the perfect life. The picture remained in her head, creating a story begging for its chance. In her novel Just Listen, she shows that everyone has a story. They just need someone to sit down and quietly listen.

          For the majority of their lives, Annabel Greene and her older sisters modeled. While they enjoyed it for the most part, they also continued to appease their mother. However, modeling is a stressful business. After following Kirsten, the oldest of the three sisters to New York, Whitney, the middle child, find that her modeling picks up. Under the pressure she develops an eating disorder, which lands her in the hospital. Meanwhile, Annabel’s world gets more painful when her friendship with her best friend, Sophie, ends abruptly over a painful incident Annabel cannot bring herself to share with anyone. Then she meets Owen, who’s obsessed with anything musical—including chirpings—and teaches her how to listen.

          Although I do not call Just Listen Sarah Dessen’s strongest story, I do keep it in my top favorites. The concepts in Just Listen are thought provoking. Dessen created a beautiful tale of a girl who doesn’t know how to speak what she feels or understand what she hears. Often I find myself having the same troubles. It is also a story of bravery, facing the fears that you push farther and farther back into your mind, hoping they will eventually disappear. No matter how you may try, what you did in the past can not and will not go away. In the novel, Annabel endures music Owen worships. Through this difference of taste, Dessen shows the importance of giving things second chances and doing things for people you care about. Annabel introduces Owen to the concept that “everything sounds better in the car wash.” Sometimes one only has to view something in a different light. 

          After reading this book, I definitely recommend it to any fan of Sarah Dessen or to someone looking for a sweet, powerful story. She created characters and concepts that will always stay with me. The novel carries a message of hope, saying that true friends will always care for you no matter how much time passes. It also shows the ties between family members who truly love one another. I found myself numerous times smiling at the words Sarah chose to rightly tell Annabel’s story, and I am glad that I sat down to listen.

-Haley P.