I have never read a Sarah Dessen's book before, but I have heard so much great opinions about it so I decided to pick one up. And let me just say that I did not regret it. It was done beautifully. From the very first page, the very circumstances of the main character, Ruby, just catch your eye. It makes you want to get to know her better and just dive into her world. 
 Ruby's sister, Cora, and her husband, Jammie, were also some really interesting character. To be honest, at first I don't really care for Cora. She just seems to be a character that is there, but isn't doing anything. But as time goes on, I started to really like her and enjoy her character. Especially after the misunderstandings were cleared. 
 The main male character, Nate, was also a really interesting character to read about. He is your boy next door (and he really does live next door to Ruby). He is super friendly, involved in almost everything, the prom king, and basically the typical Mr. Popular. However, under that perfect boy mask, there are things he is hiding about. You get to follow along Ruby's footsteps and figure these things out, which I found super fascinating. 
 Ruby's friend, Olivia, is also a really nice addition to the novel. She is kinda like Ruby in some sort of way so they get to relate with each other a lot. And some of the things she says in the book was also quite inspiring: 
 "My point is, there are a lot of people in the world. No one ever sees everything the same way you do; it just doesn't happen. So when you find one person who gets a couple of things, especially if they're important ones... you might as well hold on to them. You know?" 
 Last but not least, I also liked the project Ruby was given at the beginning of the book - to ask different people about the meaning of family. It really does fit into the story in the way that family is something Ruby doesn't really have before she moved in with Jammie and Cora. Through the book, as she discovers who she is, she is also slowly discovering the true meaning of family. And finally be able to give out her own definition of family w, which I found really inspiring. 
 What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. Cora was right--we had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, as well as the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them were perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You couldn't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build a world from it. 
 So my true family was not just my mom, lost or found; my dad, gone from the start; and Cora, the only one who had really been there all along. It was Jamie, who took me in without question and gave me a future I once couldn't even imagine; Olivia, who did question, but also gave me answers; Harriet, who, like me, believed she needed no one and discovered otherwise. And then there was Nate. 
 Nate, who was a friend to me before I even knew what a friend was. Who picked me up, literally, over and over again, and never asked for anything in return except for my word and my understanding. I'd given him one but not the other, because at the time I thought I couldn't, and then proved myself right by doing exactly as my mother had, hurting to prevent from being hurt myself. Needing was so easy: it came naturally, like breathing. Being needed by someone else, though, that was the hard part. But as with giving help and accepting it, we had to do both to be made complete--like links overlapping to form a chain, or a lock finding the right key.