Book Review - Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars

I’ve been wanting to read a Sarah Dessen book for awhile, so when I had a 11 hour drive to go on, I decided to check out the Audio CD’s of Lock and Key to listen to. Listening to Lock and Key probably swayed my opinion a bit because I’m going to say this book was VERY SLOW and SUPER DESCRIPTIVE!

Ruby has an abusive mother and so, Ruby later goes to live with her older sister. Ruby is 17, so she has a year before she’s a legal adult. Ruby and her mother lived very poorly because Ruby’s mom couldn’t hold a job. Ruby’s sister is very rich. Ruby’s sister is a lawyer and Ruby’s brother in law is successful too. Ruby starts to form a relationship with Nate, who lives next door. Nate and Ruby work together to get over personal issues.

I thought this book was going to be about Ruby and Nate, it’s completely NOT. I would describe Lock and Key as a coming of age novel. The first 100 page describes how Ruby lives with her mom, which is fine, but I don’t think it should have been so long.

Also, I think the descriptive scenes were just too much. For example, Ruby would be taking a test, you can just say, “Ruby took her test and she thought it was going to be hard, but it really wasn’t”, done. BUT instead you get a description of Ruby on her drive to school, about to take the test, then Ruby walking into the room, about to take the test, Ruby sitting down, about to take the test, Ruby taking out her pencil, about to take the test, Ruby going over question 1, then the last question, during the test… I mean, don’t you want to just fast-forward or pull your hair out?!

I also wanted to punch Ruby in the face MANY times. Ruby would say something about not needing anyone, but when she asks for help and they don’t help her, she then decides to go back to the same person who didn’t help her? You can’t push people away and then ask for help and when you are denied help and go back to the same person who pushed you away just don’t make sense. I guess I just didn’t understand Ruby’s character she was just beyond messed up, her character was so flawed to the point I just couldn’t take it anymore.

The summary was misleading, it really wasn’t a “Cinderella” story, it was a book about a messed up teenager, telling you stories of how abusive her Mom is, the relationship between Ruby and sister, and some parts with Nate, but the main story was mainly Ruby getting over her issues.

I think I am ticked because the summary mislead me, if I knew this was just a coming of age novel about a troubled teen, I would have gone into Lock and Key with better assumptions, but because I thought I was going to get a romantic Cinderella love story I would say I am highly disappointed.

Lock and Key isn’t a bad book, it’s written well, even though it’s so descriptive (some people like that). Just know this isn’t a romantic novel.


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