Lock and Key - Sarah Dessen

After reading Dreamland earlier this year, it’s surprising that I was able to pick up another Sarah Dessen book so quickly without at least a pause, but thankfully it does not seem that Dreamland left any lasting damage on my psyche and I look forward to reading many more Dessen books in the near future.

Lock and Key was a slow starting book. Usually when I read a Sarah Dessen book, I’m almost immediately sucked into the main character’s story but with Lock and Key, it took a few chapters before I fully found myself invested in Ruby’s story but eventually everything fell into place and like always, I fell under the spell that Dessen is so good at casting.

I thought it interesting that Ruby wasn’t a “good” girl. In every other Dessen book I’ve read to date, the main character seems to be the good girl that almost nobody notices because they don’t bring attention to themselves. Ruby however, is not like that. She smokes pot. She drinks. She’s not what you’d consider a dedicated student…and it was refreshing. She doesn’t do a whole lot to try to cover up her flaws and scars like many of the other characters I’ve encountered in Dessen’s novels.

This was also the first Dessen novel where I picked up on previous characters making guest appearances. I had read about this awhile back, but this is the very first novel where I was able to pick up on where I had met other characters. It was exciting, although the first character, and the one that makes several appearances through the book was Roscoe Biscoe…from Dreamland, so while I was excited to pick up on this guest appearance, it kind of filled me with rage and mentally I screamed at Ruby to stay the hell away from him whenever she encountered him. 

Overall a four star book. Although I was not exactly overly thrilled with how long it took me to actually become invested in Ruby’s story…once it picked up its momentum I enjoyed it a lot and I feel that it was one of Sarah Dessen’s best works.