Lock And Key

Lock And Key

Unlocking the Future

Imagine being abandoned by your own mother; being forced to pick up and leave, and having to start a whole new life somewhere else. This is what Ruby has to deal with after being left on her own at 17 years old when her mother suddenly doesn’t come in Sarah Dessen’s heartfelt novel, Lock and Key. After days, and weeks, and even months of her mother’s disappearance; she is forced to live with her sister Cora and her husband Jamie. Ruby and Cora hadn’t seen each other in years, and all this time Ruby thought her sisters distance was on purpose. In her new life at her new home, she goes to a whole new school, meets new friends, and a boy that becomes something more than that. His name is Nate, and as their relationship grows stronger, she unlocks a lot of things she wouldn’t have expected. Not only does she unlock Nate’s life, she reveals her own as well. As she progresses into the future and continues with her new life, Ruby always holds on to the one thing from her past; the “yellow house” key she keeps dangled around her neck.  
When Ruby lived with her mother, they had just moved into a new house. While living with her sister the only way of remembering her past was by her old house key that she wore as a necklace. The key not only symbolized her past, but also the future that needed to be “unlocked” only by Ruby having the ability of moving on from what she went through prior.   As Ruby began a new school, one of her first assignments was to find out the true meaning of the word family. At first, she didn’t know what family meant. Living without a father, feeling neglected by her sister, and abandoned by her mother; Ruby’s outlook on family isn’t a positive one. Though as her stay at her sister progresses, she learns that things aren’t so bad after all. She begins to experience things she never had, like having a boyfriend and feelings loved by the people around her.   By the end of the year, her idea of...