Along for the Ride: (Movie Tie-In)

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Heidi West: Auden's upbeat 26-year-old stepmother who has been married to Robert West for about a year. And Auden and Eli actually go to Tallyho one night to share a dance and their first kiss during their quest. Eli comforts her, letting her vent about the fight and repressed emotions from her parents’ divorce.

Auden leaves for another three hours and is unsure whether to feel grateful or not for Heidi defending her. In the book, Auden runs into Eli while taking her colicky step-sister, Thisbe, out for a walk at sunrise in hopes of soothing her to sleep. Male protagonist Eli has a good parental relationship, takes responsibility, and shows resiliency in dealing with his friend’s death.Having spent her teenage years striving toward perfection and her mother’s high standards, Auden is out of her element amidst people who care about things she didn’t think mattered until now—close friendships, riding bikes, hot dog parties, and more. It is Maggie who pushes Auden to reconsider her classifications of womanhood and to see that femininity, intelligence, and adventurousness can coexist. Her old classmate and past prom date who stood her up, Jason, appears in town for a month-long conference.

She also realizes that her mother’s rigid expectations of female behavior have limited her own growth as a young woman. Academics is where she feels safe because that is what she is good at, and she doesn't like to fail. I do wish it had been included more because it was a crucial part of Auden, her mother (Andie MacDowell), and their development both individually and collectively. Sarah Dessen is a Young Adult (YA) romance staple for many, including myself when I was a teenager, so I was delighted when I heard that my favorite book by her was being made into a movie!Maggie, Leah and Esther were good for a few smiles throughout the story, but over all they were just typical teenage girls with nothing to make them stand out. Excited to bond with him after her parents’ divorce, Auden is disappointed that he spends most days writing in his study, moods shifting depending on his progress. The movie starts with Auden being excluded from a tradition at her school where the graduating seniors throw toilet paper off the bell tower. And she certainly doesn’t feel comfortable at her dad’s house, with a stepmother who is so different (think “pink”) and with a father who is even more self-centered than she remembered.

Their relationship comes up several more times throughout the book, but Eli's dating history is left out of the movie. It's really hard not to fall head over heels in love with a Dessen bookthere's just so much stuff to grasp, to learn, and to relate to. Jason and his plot were scraped from the movie, and Auden only vaguely mentions skipping her high-school prom.Then, she receives a present from her older brother Hollis, who has been trekking around Asia: a picture of him at the Taj Mahal in a frame with the label “The Best of Times. m.—times I was never coherent before motherhood—see a light on in the distance, and wonder who else was up, and why. The next morning, Auden runs into her dad while he's leaving the house, preparing to move out for a while, and she starts to slip back into her shell. It is clear that Auden's father is irritated since he does not want to leave the house so he can finish his book.