Once and for All, Sarah Dessen

Once and for All by Sarah Dessen 

I have read three Sarah Dessen novels and I am not her biggest fan, although I am aware of the fact that many people adore her novels, I have never really liked them that much. I have read this one, The Lullaby and Along for the Ride. Along for the Ride is probably my favorite one out of those three and I will admit that it is a pretty good book, hopefully, I will be able to post a review of that one sometime soon. When I tell people that I am not Dessen´s biggest fan, people immediately ask me if I even like YA novels or summer romances, and I absolutely love those two, but it´s just that her stories have never really stayed with me and I had a similar experience with Once and for All because I was unsure that I was going to like it, but I adore weddings, so I thought that I needed to at least give it a try. I think weddings are special and that they are beautiful. In fact, I live them so much  that at some point when I was growing up I honestly thought about becoming a wedding planner but discovered that I am not that patient, therefore, not really qualified for that business, yet I still have the right to enjoy them, so after reading how many people were actually enjoying Once and for All and how it was set inside the world of wedding planning, I thought that I should give it a go. I mean, there wasn´t really anything to lose. 
Once and for All narrated the story of Louna, a teenager that lives only with her mother, Natalie, who owns a very successful wedding planning company with William, Natalie´s best friend and basically Louna´s father figure. Our main character has to be running around the town running errands and helping the family business as much as she can before she goes to college. Louna´s summer seems to be going exactly like she predicted, with horrible dates organized by Jilly, her best friend, who is trying to make her be back in the dating field after a past relationship. Well, that is until Ambrose starts working with Louna. Ambrose is exactly what Louna HATES. He is very unprofessional, flirts with all the girls, has a hard time focusing on a relationship and takes the poorest decisions (in Louna´s point of view). Louna continues trying to forget her first love and continue with her life, even when it seems impossible to find someone after Ethan. 
I want to start this review by talking about how my favorite character is William! I loved his personality and honestly, I would love to have someone like him by my side because he is funny and caring, which I think was something that Louna needed. Also, he probably made every scene better. 
I liked Ethan because he had a very "magical" story with him, plus he was adorable and just like the type of boyfriend you read about in every summer romance book. 
Surprisingly, Ambrose didn´t really catch my attention that much. I mean, yes, I like him because he is funny and he has different ideas that are very interesting, but I feel like he didn´t get enough recognition for his self, Louna always seemed to like his physical appearance more than himself. But I did enjoy reading about him.
On the other hand, Louna was a character that I found just okay. I really liked her point of view in true love and weddings because she saw so many people that fell apart because of a relationship, yet she held tight her dream of meeting the right person, and I would like to admit that this was probably the first time that someone actually put into words what I think about marriage. But I also found her a little bit annoying from time to time because she acted a little immature with certain people like Ambrose or Jilly, and she was so immature around those that cared about her. 
Jilly is a character that I liked, but she is just the most typical best friend you can think of in a YA novel, she is the opposite of our main character, she likes going out all the time, she sets Louna with weird guys and stuff, but the one thing that made her special and more likeable was the fact that she was always taking care of the family business and her siblings. I think that it showed how there are people that prefer to be more outgoing because they are tired of being stuck with their family all the time. 
Another character that I think is worth mentioning is Natalie, Louna´s mother because I liked her and she is not even one of the important characters, but I hated her character development. Sometimes she appeared and sometimes she didn´t, and her ending is something that I didn´t like at all because it made you feel like all those 300 pages were wasted.
I want to talk about Ethan´s story because I found the whole summer romance thing adorable because when you read it, it is described as your ideal summer romance, yes, one of those that lasts at least a week. Well, Ethan´s summer romance only lasted a night and guess what? They started dating! I mean, I loved the night they passed together and everything, but dating and kind of making all these promises seemed a little too fictional, even when I am one of those hopeless romantics at heart! I liked Ethan and everything, but it felt a little unreal, that´s all. 
Also, I felt like Ambrose wasn´t even one of the main characters because he never really had a story with Louna, I think they never really fell in love, they were trying to be friends while he kept flirting with the bridesmaids. In my opinion, the novel´s pace was just too slow for me.
I disliked all the sub-plots that were added to the story because it made the story SO messy because at some point we had so many things going on at the same time that it started to confuse me! I mean, I liked that there were many diverse stories in a novel, but in this novel, they were just added out of the blue that it confused me. 
I think the one good thing that I want to mention is that the whole wedding planning industry kept me reading because as I mentioned, I love weddings and I think that if this novel was centered in another business, I would´ve probably stopped reading it. 
But like I said, Dessen is just not usually my style, but if she is, you should enjoy this one too, I just happened to not find the right theme on this one. Yet, I will admit that it made me continue reading it, so even though it is confusing and messy, Dessen´s writing still has the factor that pulls you in and makes you read more. 

3 1/2 out of 5 stars 

Love, Sua