Sixteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton

The book Sixteenth Summer is a normal love story, but because I have just started reading it, the main character has just met the boy.  In the beginning of the book, the author sets up a scenario of jealousy.  Anna has always had two best friends, but this summer, they start going out, and Anna is in a sort of third-wheel position.  I think that the author is trying to put Anna in this position so that the reader can realize what it feels like to be left out of everything, and that friendships are important.

When every summer for 15 years, Anna, Caroline, and Sam, and suddenly their relationship is changing, Anna gets jealous.  Having a good friendship is always important, and it can really hurt when you suddenly feel like you are loosing the two people you have always been closest with. Friends are the people who bring you up when you're sad, and support everything you do, but also make life more fun.  Especially in the summer, you need your friends to laugh with and just hang around. I think this will more be a lesson for Anna's best friends, however, when they realize what they are doing to her.

 I think that this is setting up the main idea and lesson for Anna as well, that change can be good.  Her two best friends have grown closer, leaving her to herself, but I think that this new growing-apart will show Anna that sometimes, change is needed.  Because she has held onto those 15 summers her whole life, this summer will be good and refreshing.  She can make a new friend, Will, and create new memories and experiences.  Anna needs to learn that she can fend for herself and make her summer great, even if she is loosing two very special people in her life.

--Ali