Party of Five

Colie is spending the summer with her aunt while her mom travels for business. As a former fat girl, she has shed the weight but not the low self esteem that went with it, helped along by a bully girl that has made it her mission to ruin Colie's life. Colie has low expectations for what the summer will hold, but she is in for the summer of her life. She is befriended by two girls, neighbors of her aunt, who also help her get hired at the diner they work at, and is also befriended by the art student boy renting a room from her aunt. Over the course of the summer Colie learns what beauty is, gains self esteem, and gains life long friend in the process.

This was a slower Sarah Dessen novel than others I've read, but still enjoyable nonetheless. Dessen has the uncanny ability to reach into the mind of the teenage girl and deliver all of her angst and insecurities to the reader while delivering her growth and recovery at the same time. There were no disappointments with this book.