Linnea Hendrickson (Children's Literature)
In the words of its author, this is "a story about friendship, love, and the one year we all remember when everything has changed." Halley and Scarlett have been friends since childhood, but at the end of the summer before their junior year, Scarlett's boyfriend, Michael Sherwood, dies in a motorcycle accident, and their lives begin to change in ways they could never have imagined. Scarlett learns she is pregnant with Michael's child, and Halley falls in love for the first time with the mysterious, charming, and infuriating Macon Faulkner. Both Halley and Scarlett engage in battles of wills with their very different mothers and in conflicts with other girls at school. The characters are well delineated and the plot is well constructed and nicely paced. Issues of love, friendship, family, and deciding for oneself what is right are handled deftly, the decidedly serious issues lightened with a touch of humor. 1998, Viking, $15.99. Ages 12 up.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1998)
This second novel from Dessen (That Summer, 1996) will leave even sophisticated readers cheering: A teenager's giving birth on prom night sounds like the stuff of farce, but not in this book--a tender story of two girls who have been best friends since childhood, and the year that changes everything. Halley, named for her grandmother who was named for the comet, has a father who is a raucous local DJ and a mother who writes books about mother/daughter relationships. Perhaps stereotypically, her conversations with Halley have become controlling and strained. Halley's best friend Scarlett has been the grown-up in her household, coping with her single and distracted mother, Marion. Scarlett's first serious relationship ends when Michael, with whom she has just had sex, is killed in a motorcycle accident. It is Halley to whom a pregnant Scarlett turns as she decides to keep the child. Halley, meanwhile, is attracted to Michael's best friend Macon, a classic bad boy: sexy, wild, with too much freedom and too much money. The heart of this tale is the garden of female relationships, especially Scarlett and Halley's; they support each other in all the ways a best friendship entails. When Scarlett's daughter is born, Halley muses about these relationships and what she will tell the baby in a final paean to love, loss, and growing up, in which Dessen's fine writing easily overcomes the occasional wobbly plotline. 1998, Viking, $15.99. © 1998 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, June 1998 (Vol. 51, No. 10))
Devoted best friends and neighbors, Halley and Scarlett find their junior year brings life changes they never dreamed of. First, Scarlett’s boyfriend dies in an accident, and then Scarlett discovers she’s pregnant. Halley falls for Macon, a charming but disreputable boy guaranteed to drive Halley’s therapist mother, already alarmed by her daughter’s increasing distance and by Scarlett’s example, crazy. The mounting intensity of Halley’s yearning for Macon, for love, for autonomy--and increasing questions about the overlap among the three--are brought into sharp relief when contrasted with Scarlett’s experience. As in That Summer (BCCB 11/96), Dessen shows herself a lyrical stylist, giving Halley’s narration a freshness that keeps the book’s romantic events from becoming too flowery or purple. The occurrences do incline towards the melodramatic (a motorcycle crash, a car crash, a dying grandmother, the start of labor at the junior prom), but the book’s nuanced depiction of relationships (particularly between Halley and her mother) and of Halley’s growth remains compelling throughout. This is a highly wrought story of love and conflict that should be relished by fans of Mary Downing Hahn’s The Wind Blows Backward (BCCB 5/93). Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 1998, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1998, Viking, 281p, $15.99. Grades 7-12.

Marcia Mann (VOYA, August 1998 (Vol. 21, No. 3))
At the beginning of their junior year of high school, Halley's best friend's boyfriend dies in a motorcycle accident. Unaccustomed to being the strong one in their friendship, Halley nonetheless struggles to provide emotional support for Scarlett. When Scarlett discovers she is pregnant, she depends on Halley even more. At the same time as Halley works to adjust to their changing circumstances, she must also deal with the shifting relationship she has with her controlling mother and she falls in love for the first time. Halley's relationship with Macon Faulkner, the "Boy with a Reputation," serves to distance her from her parents as it helps Halley discover herself and her own set of values. The story is told from Halley's point of view. She is an engaging character and her maturing perspective over the course of the year rings true. Although the focus is on Halley, as minor characters her boyfriend, mother, and Scarlett are well presented. The overall tone of Someone Like You is funny, heartwarming, and appealing--a fine follow-up to Dessen's first novel, That Summer (Orchard, 1996/VOYA December 1996), a 1997 ALA Best Book for Young Adults. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 1998, Viking, 281p., $15.99. Ages 12 to 15.