Sarah Dessen

Sarah Dessen (born 6 June 1970) is an American young adult novelist whose first novel, That Summer, appeared in 1996; she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2017.

Dessen was born in Evanston, Illinois, and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993. She lives in Chapel Hill.

That Summer (1996) was followed by Someone Like You (1998), Keeping the Moon (1999), Dreamland (2000), This Lullaby (2002), The Truth About Forever (2004), Just Listen (2006), Lock and Key (2008) and Along for the Ride (2009), which reached the New York Times bestseller list. Later novels include What Happened to Goodbye (2011), The Moon and More (2013), Saint Anything (2015), Once and for All (2017) and The Rest of the Story (2019). Several of her books were chosen as ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults titles, and in 2017 she received the American Library Association's Margaret A. Edwards Award. The 2003 film How to Deal was adapted from That Summer and Someone Like You, and Netflix released a film of Along for the Ride in 2022.

For collectors

That Summer (1996), her debut, and Someone Like You (1998) are the natural starting points, as the two novels adapted for the 2003 film How to Deal.