Yesterday I read the book That Summer by Sarah Dessen and I enjoyed it a whole lot. It's a quick read and it's one of the two books that inspired How to Deal. I completely agree with a blurb on the back of the book by "Booklist": ``This first novel is written with such easy grace that you want quote sentence after sentence.''#

The girl in the book, Haven, has a tough time growing up. Literally. This quote is very funny...#

I was compact at six, able to fit neatly into small places that now were inaccessible: under the crook of an arm, in the palm of a hand. At five-eleven and counting, I no longer had the sense that someone like Mrs. Thomas could neatly enclose me if danger should strike. I was all bony elbows and acute angles, like a jigsaw puzzle piece that can only go in the middle, waiting for the others to fit around it to make it whole. [p. 10]

Haven works in a cheap children's shoe store and this quote says something that's true about many children's places.#

Little Feet was too cheep for helium, so all we gave out were balloons pumped from a bicycle pump, with a ribbon tied around them so you could drag them along behind you like a round plastic dog. There's something depressing about a balloon that just lies there, listless. I always felt apologetic as I offered them to the children, as if it was somehow my fault. [p. 44]

A final quote from this book occurs when Haven's best friend is telling a story about this hometown-hero model girl's mental breakdown.#

"She woke up at four A.M. and made pancakes, and when Mrs. Rogers went downstairs to see what was going on, that was when Gwendolyn told her. Standing there at the stove flipping pancakes at four A.M. and telling this horrible story. She ate ten pancakes and burst into tears and Mrs. Rogers said she is just at a loss as to what action to take. And since then, Mrs. Oliver says, Gwendolyn hasn't said a word."

"Ten pancakes?" I said. This, to me, seemed like the most unbelievable part of the story.

"Haven, honestly." Casey hated when anyone tried to take away from whatever story she was telling.

[p. 85]

So I liked the book. I'm officially a fifteen year old girl, apparently.#