Review: "Dreamland" by Sarah Dessen

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen
Published 2000
★★★★

When Caitlin's sister rejects the life that has been set out for her, Caitlin finds herself floundering in the shadows. With attention elsewhere, she throws herself into new things—cheerleading, a new boyfriend. Cheerleading she hates. The boyfriend, though, takes up more and more of her time...and gradually leaves her with more and more bruises.

Dessen made her name on summer (or summer-like) romances set in North Carolina, but once upon a time, before she'd settled into the rhythm of YA romance, she wrote Dreamland. I was twelve when this came out, and I probably read it that year or the next. I read (and loved) a lot of Dessen's books, but this one still stands out—darker, not a romance (or not really), a time in Dessen's writing when her heroines were allowed to make mistakes and find themselves in unhealthy relationships and not be squeaky clean. It's so interesting to see reviews from people who read some of Dessen's later work first and prefer that, because I have always felt that this is one of Dessen's stronger works—no healthy happy romance, a heroine who get wrapped up in drugs, etc.

I realized I'd grown out of Dessen's books some time ago, when I read yet another book about a heroine with problems that weren't her fault and concluded that I wasn't likely to see another heroine who got to be at all messy (and definitely not one who was poor or fat or queer or political or from somewhere other than small-town-but-not-too-small-town North Carolina). I remember this one as one of Dessen's only books that allows for that messiness (an abusive relationship isn't Caitlin's fault, of course, but she at least goes willingly into her experiments with pot and class-skipping—agency, yay?). But, rereading it now, it's perhaps not so big a difference; Caitlin is still a White, wealthy (or wealthy enough to never worry about money) teenage girl with an enormous safety net. I'm still so happy to see a YA character who gets to make some mistakes, but even the dramatic drug plotline feels quite late-90s these days; while I wouldn't recommend that high school students go get stoned, an author writing this in the 2020s would probably have to get Caitlin hooked on something stronger for it to carry the same weight that it did then.

Because this was published 25 years ago, it's interesting to see what else still feels contemporary and what doesn't—Caitlin calling every number where she thinks she can reach Rogerson, for example, is a distinctly pre-cell-phone vibe. A few word choices and targets of not-quite-snark would give me pause today but aren't so out of line for 2000s NC. Late in the book, there's some stuff involving residential treatment and characters who are in said treatment for months, even more than a year—partly a sign of changing times (contemporary insurance companies would likely give most of the patients the boot within weeks), partly a sign of this being a world populated by people with a certain degree of financial comfort, partly perhaps just that Dessen might not have considered insurance policies when writing the book back then.

As a nostalgia read, this was a win, and I can still imagine it resonating with teens, especially those in unhealthy relationships. But...these days, I'd probably recommend something else.