Dreamland

Dreamland is a young adult romance written by Sarah Dessen. The book starts with Caitlin O'Koren waking up on her 16th birthday. Upon waking up, she discovers that her older sister, Cass, has run away with her boyfriend. Everyone completely forgets her birthday as everyone is in a panic about Cass. Later, Caitlin is at a car wash where she meets Rogerson Biscoe, a seemingly attractive drug dealer who is abused by his father. They meet up at a party and quickly become a couple. Because of Rogerson, Caitlin is introduced to drugs and soon becomes a careless teenager. She skips and fails almost all of her classes and befriends a woman in her mid twenties named Corinna. After some time, Caitlin starts to be abused by Rogerson. She is physically abused when she fails to inform him where she is or is seen talking to other boys. She loves him and cannot leave him.
Dreamland is well written and it keeps you wanting more. However, it also has many issues. First of all, there are countless scenes in the book where she is smoking pot or doing drugs which can become uncomfortable and annoying after a while. Secondly, there is a lot of language in this book. A LOT. Also, in the abuse scenes are very explicit. Lastly, there are a few sexual scenes. It is not said in the moment, but Caitlin talks about it saying that it, "was the only time I could count on being safe."
All in all, I feel that this book deserves a B. It was very interesting and entertaining. I liked the way how it kind of related to real life situations and the people around us. I did not want to stop reading! However, this book had so many moral issues that it was almost uncomfortable to read at times. I would be reading the story all happy and everything and then suddenly it would be a scene where she was smoking or drinking. This book can also put you in a depressing mood. She talks about her feelings a lot and just reading some of this is depressing. So if you get depressed easily, I would not recomend this book. However, if you don't get sad easily and you are comfortable reading the things I have talked about, I would definatley recomend it. It is VERY interesting and you get hooked on the story and the characters.