Sarah Dessen is a YA queen, the beloved author of over a dozen contemporary YA novels exploring themes of loss, first love, assault, family ties, and all the confusing, heartbreaking, thrilling moments when things change forever for her young protagonists. Her new book, The Rest of the Story, centers on a lakefront town divided between the working-class families who live there year round, and the wealthy families who just summer there, and the girl whose fraught family history straddles both. We talked to Dessen about her teen years, her long career, and how the YA landscape has changed since her debut.