She Loves You, She Loves You Not - Julie Anne Peters

Young Adult
Pages: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: June 1, 2011

Seventeen-year-old Alyssa thought she knew who she was. She had her family, her best friends, and most importantly, she had Sarah. Sarah, her girlfriend, with whom she dreamed with about the day they could move far away and live out and proud and accepted for themselves, instead of having to hide their relationship.
Alyssa never thought she would have to make that move by herself, but disowned by her father and cut off from everyone she loves, she is forced to move hundreds of miles away to live with Carly, a mother she barely knows, in a town where everyone immediately dismisses her as 'Carly's girl.' Struggling to forget her past and come to terms with her future, will Alyssa be able to build a new life for herself and believe in love again? Or will she be forced to relive the mistakes that have cost her everything and everyone she cared about?
This compelling novel about coming out, finding love, and discovering your place in the world will speak to anyone who has known the joy and pain of first love and the struggle to start over again.

Sarah Dessen meets GLBT. It's a sweet, wonderfully-written, coming of age novel with a lesbian main character. I'm a huge fan of Julie Anne Peters because she is able to convey so much emotion with her writing and she rarely sugarcoats things. Also, her characters are always incredibly memorable. In She Loves You, She Loves You Not, my favorite character was Arlo. He stole my heart, which is something one of her characters always manages to do when I'm reading Peter's books.

The story was a bit slow-paced, but other than that, I had no complaints. The plot, like I said, reminded me a lot of Dessen's books. Girl moves with her mom to small town, finds a job at at the local restaurant, struggles with her past and what she left behind, and finds a new crush that has a few issues of her own. But the bits and pieces were so interesting to me. For starters I has never read from the point of view of a lesbian character. That was new for me and very eye-opening. Then, I believe that very few times I've read books where a character is on a wheelchair (at the moment I only remember Inside Out and Twilight). Yay for diversity in YA. Last but not least is the mother's career choice. So, definitely a book that brings much more to the table than just a teenage romance.

Overall, I very much enjoyed the story. I cant wait to read what Peters writes next!

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