Summer Reading Blog- Just Listen.

By: Sarah Dessen

“Just Listen” by; Sarah Dessen is a realistic and engrossing novel that is a must-read for any young teenage girl. The book explores real life matters that have both positive and negative affects on families and these events are foreseen through the eyes of the main character Annabel Green. Some events that arise throughout Annabel’s life in the novel are loss of friendship, family crisis from her sister’s disorder (anorexia), a no longer desire to model, and the discovery of a person who views life from an entirely different perspective.

The many conflicts discovered throughout the novel would certainly produce an interesting and quite absorbing movie to watch. The two main characters from this book are two high school teens: One, a former “popular girl” Annabel who used to be seen at all the school’s social events and modeled as a desired “It Girl”. The other character is a rather large teen boy named Owen who once beat up the most popular guy in school. He has no friends. He sits on the wall all lunch listening to his I-pod. Annabel would be played by Michelle Trachtenberg whole played the lead role in the movie Ice Princess and played Georgina in Gossip Girl. I would choose Michelle for playing Annabel for a few reasons: For one, she is an exceptional actress and she is able to play various characters from the “goodie two shoes” (Ice Princess) to a rebellious adolescent. This would be the perfect combination as Michelle would be able to play the parts in the movie as the old Annabel, and as the new Annabel. Also, Michelle has a very young face which makes her appear much younger than she is which would be an enormous benefit as she would be more experienced but still look like a high school student. The role of Owen would be played by: Jonah Hill who acted in the movie Superbad, Accepted, and some other films. Jonah Hill has usually played in comedies, but I feel that he would make an outstanding Owen, as he appears to have a small sensitive side whenever I watch the movies he is featured in. His appearance compliments the role quite well, as I imagined Owen to have a big afro-like head of hair, and a big round face.

I could imagine the opening shot of this movie to look something along the lines of this: The movie opens with a commercial of a girl modeling for K-Mart and she is shot in different locations of a school. (ie: field, lockers, cafeteria) She is supposed to be portraying the life of a girl who has it all. When the movie opens, the commercial fills the screen, but as the commercial nears its end, it pans out to the family room/ kitchen of Annabel Green, played by Michelle Trachtenberg. The girl in this commercial is Annabel, and Annabel is watching this commercial, and sighs after it is over as that was just like the girl she used to be. She get’s into her 1990’s hand me down BMW and drives to school. As she is driving a particular piece of music begins to play to set the mood. The song is “Glass of Water” by Coldplay. I chose this song because it sound like one of those songs that are often played at the beginning of a movie, that don’t necessarily have a definite emotion to them. They are not entirely happy, but they are also not depressing. The song is very mellow. After about 10 seconds of the song playing, it fads so that it is just instrumental and is much quieter as a narrative in Annabel’s voice is suddenly heard. She begins to talk about her life how it was in the past, and how it has changed.

Overall, the novel, Just Listen, is a very realistic view of an average teenage girl and the conflicts that occur during her high school year. At times it is delightfully exciting, and there are moments of depression, and these emotions balance the story out to create an inviting and excellent read for any teenage girl.

By:Cameron Rice-Gural