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Title: someone like Jerry Falwell or Dr. Laura
Review: Someone Like You is an easy read, but the book promotes so many negative ideas about women that I found it hard to enjoy it. The book attempts to portray female friendship, and does a fairly good job of capturing the importance of friendship between young women. But Dessen severely punishes any character who has sex (fatal motorcycle accident, pregnancy) or even wants to have sex (car accident). Her blatantly regressive views on sex make this book more of a blanket treatise on why sex is bad and should not happen outside of traditional marriage. Dessen also incorporates extremely negative messages about body image into this novel, which are particularly damaging for young women. She is a talented storyteller, but her ultra-conservative, reactionary views render this novel more than repulsive; it is simply bad.
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