Review by Philip Harris
“I’m Annabel. I’m the girl who has it all. Model looks, confidence, a great social life. I’m one of the lucky ones. Aren’t I?”
What can I say about just listen? It’s a gateway into the life of Annabel Greene, a teenage model in America that loses her best friend (but don’t worry it’s not a soppy story) for reasons I don’t want to give away. So now she has no-one to hang out with a high school, until she finally makes contact with Owen after spending weeks sitting near him at lunch every day. He has a really weird taste in music and after befriending him Annabel slowly becomes like him. Over the course of the whole novel you slowly gain an understanding of how hard Annabel’s’ life is, and what she’s got to do to be finally free from her own mind, “enlightened”.
Sarah Dessen has produced a great novel suitable for most people (some boys may be discouraged by the cover) which can really make you think about how some seemingly humongous problem in your life is nothing compared to others. At first it’s hard to keep track of it due to the flitting back and forth from the past to present. But without these small clips of information this novel wouldn’t be the same. If you enjoy slightly traumatic books or books with a deep meaning then this is the one for you. Just so you don’t think this book is going to freak you out, the most traumatic part is when the family realise that Annabels’ sister (Whitney) has an eating disorder, don’t worry about it being too traumatic.
Unlike in my other reviews I would like to mention the art work on the cover, it reminds me of “Lets get lost” by Sarra Manning which was in last year long list and was also a slightly traumatic, (when I say traumatic I really mean a book which addresses issues that can hit some people very hard i.e. Racism, anorexia, death that kind of stuff), novel that talks about a teenage girl in England with problems. So if you’ve read Just Listen I suggest you read Lets Get Lost.
But overall Just Listen is a superb novel that deserves to be on the long list.
P.S I have one more book to read: A Swift Pure Cry, so look out for my review on that later on.
2 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
I thought that this book was great. I really enjoyed reading it.
great book! write more plz.