60 pages • 2 hours read
Sarah DessenSomeone Like You
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Sarah Dessen
Sarah Dessen is the author of more than a dozen novels and novellas for young adults. Her work is known for its realistic portrayal of young adult experiences as her protagonists explore romantic and platonic relationships, identity, and the complexities of growing up. As in Someone Like You, Dessen does not shy away from writing about complex and challenging experiences that young adults go through, such as teen pregnancy and the pitfalls of first love.
Dessen’s characters are often praised for their relatability. She stated in an interview that she strives to write characters that are realistic and that do not fall into what she calls the myth of “effortless perfection”: “You’re supposed to be an amazing student, and an incredible friend, and look great, and have it all together, and it’s just supposed to look really easy. Nobody can do that” (Gragert, Anna. “I Interviewed Author Sarah Dessen, the Woman Who Made Me Want to Read and Write.” HelloGiggles, 7 June 2017). Her characters do not always make the right decisions and sometimes experience hardship as a direct result of their own actions. This is evidenced in Someone Like You when Halley makes the choice to continue dating Macon despite her loved ones’ concerns, ultimately ending up in a car accident after lying to her parents about her whereabouts. Halley learns from these mistakes, but nonetheless, Dessen does not prop her up as an example of an effortlessly perfect person.
Dessen draws on her own experiences as a way to create characters that young readers can see themselves in. In an article for Seventeen, Dessen describes her experience dating a 21-year-old when she was only 15:
For many years afterward, I took total blame for everything that happened between me and T. After all, I was a bad kid. I did drugs, I lied to my mom. You can't just hang out with a guy and not expect him to get ideas, I told myself. You should have known better. But maybe he should have (Dessen, Sarah. “I Thought Dating an Older Guy Was Cool—Until I Sensed That Something Was Very Wrong.” Seventeen, 5 May 2015).
It took many years for Dessen to realize that the choices she made while dating this older man were not entirely her fault. Like Halley, Dessen lied to her parents and engaged in illicit activities. Also like Halley, Dessen was not, in fact, a “bad kid,” just a young woman trying to explore her identity. Through her own life experiences, Dessen can write characters with compassion who are all the more interesting for the ways in which they make mistakes and recover from them.
Socio-Historical Context: Teenage Pregnancy
Someone Like You was first published in 1998 at a time when teen pregnancy rates in America were declining after reaching a peak in 1990. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “The estimated rate for 1990, 116.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years, was the highest ever reported over the period 1976-2002. By 2002, the rate fell to an estimated 76.4 per 1,000” (Ventura, Stephanie J., et al. “Recent Trends in Teenage Pregnancy in the United States, 1990-2002.” National Center for Health Statistics, 13 Dec. 2006). Despite or perhaps because of the downward trend in teen pregnancy during the latter 1990s, attitudes toward teen pregnancy were heavily stigmatized. Scarlett experiences this stigma when she becomes pregnant.
Many adults in her life question Scarlett’s decision to go through with the pregnancy. Her mother, Marion, encourages her to give the baby up for adoption, while her boss, Mr. Averby, subtly suggests that Scarlett should quit her job at the market because of her condition. Someone Like You portrays Scarlett’s decision to keep the baby as an empowering one and one that Scarlett will be able to navigate through the support of her family and friends, especially Halley. In light of Scarlett’s boyfriend and the baby’s father’s death at the beginning of the text, Halley acts as Scarlett’s support person and partner through the pregnancy, attending prenatal doctor visits and Lamaze classes.
The text portrays Scarlett as mitigating some of the common risks associated with teen pregnancy. According to The New York Times,
Teen-age mothers are much less likely than older women to receive timely prenatal care or gain the recommended weight during their pregnancy, and much more likely to smoke and have a low-birthweight infant, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (Lewin, Tamar. “Birth Rates for Teen-Agers Declined Sharply in the 90’s.” The New York Times, 1 May 1998).
Scarlett is a nonsmoker and attends her prenatal visits, and Halley notes that once Scarlett’s nausea subsides, she also takes daily walks and tries to eat a healthy and varied diet.
While the novel’s portrayal of teen pregnancy does not apply to each unique situation, the novel offers a realistic portrayal of how the societal stigma around teen pregnancy does not have to define the experience. Someone Like You offers one glimpse into how pregnant teens can navigate the experience with success if the right support systems are in place.
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