Sarah Dessen rocks my socks off

Sarah Dessen writes YA novels that make me wish I could write fiction. Her writing is smart and full of real emotion and she is one of a handful of YA authors whose books I have forced on The Dude.

She has a blog. It is full of fantastic tidbits into her life. She makes herself open and available to her readers in a way that I find inspiring. And she's really fascinating.

There's an article from CNN.com make its way around the blogosphere. It's about how people don't read much for leisure. In fact, the article says that 1 in 4 Americans didn't read a book last year.

Dessen is pregnant and in this post, she talks about hoping that her baby grows up to be a reader.

I admire Dessen for a lot of reasons and this is one of them.