Author: Sarah Dessen
Publisher: Speak
Year Published: 2008
Pages: 422
"What is a family?"
Who knows that answering this simple question could be so difficult for some people?
Seventeen year old Ruby had never experienced the meaning of a family like any other normal people experienced. After her parents' divorce, her father had left the family and had never bothered to check his daughters. Not long after that, her 10-years-older sister, Cora, also left the family after she started college and never came back. Ruby was left with her emotionally unstable mother, who often brought her to move to many places and often abused her. But one day, her mother also decided to go and never got back until Ruby got busted living alone without an adult, since she were still a minor, and later was forced to reunite with Cora, who apparently had a perfect life now, until she reached 18.
Living with Cora, a sister who once Ruby relied on but then abandoned her without any words, surely needs adaptation. At first, Ruby attempted to runaway but then she met the neighbor, Nate, who later became her friend at school. From the surface, Nate seems like having a perfect live although his parents already divorced. He was friendly and active. But the longer Ruby knew Nate, the more she realized that she and Nate had more similarities, especially in their relationship with their parents.