Along for the Ride
It’s been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents’ divorce—or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live.A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town. Together they embark on parallel quests: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she’s been denied; for Eli, to come to terms with the guilt he feels for the death of a friend.In her signature pitch-perfect style, Sarah Dessen explores the hearts of two lonely people learning to connect.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Along for the Ride
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Sent to spend the summer with her father, his new wife, and their baby in a small beach town, an ambitious sleepless college-bound girl falls in with a quiet boy who also lives at night.
Yes. Netflix released a 2022 film adaptation directed by Sofia Alvarez and starring Emma Pasarow and Belmont Cameli. The film follows the book closely and is set in the same beach town atmosphere.
Along for the Ride is a standalone, but it shares a setting with Sarah Dessen's other novels in the loosely connected Colby universe. Readers familiar with The Truth About Forever or Just Listen will recognize cameo references.
Along for the Ride was written by Sarah Dessen, published in 2009 by Penguin.
Along for the Ride is a standalone novel by Sarah Dessen, not part of a series.
Along for the Ride is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.