A new young adult novel by Sarah Dessen is coming next year, Cosmopolitan reports.
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers will publish the author’s Change of Plans next spring. The press describes the book as “a romantic coming-of-age novel about an unassuming girl who learns to stand on her own while falling in love during a life-changing summer.”
Dessen made her literary debut in 1996 with That Summer and followed it up two years later with Someone Like You; both books were adapted into a 2003 film, How To Deal, starring Mandy Moore and Allison Janney. Dessen has since written a dozen more books, most recently The Rest of the Story, published in 2019.
Change of Plans will follow Finley, a young woman whose post–high school life is thrown into disarray after the relationship with her boyfriend goes south. On a trip with her mother to a family vacation home, she meets some long-lost family members and falls for a guitarist named Ben.
“Change of Plans is about the lives we envision, those we end up living and the twists and turns in between,” Dessen told Cosmopolitan. “There’s also love, heartbreak, family and breakfast sandwiches.”
Change of Plans is slated for publication on May 5, 2026.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
