YA Fiction: Sarah Dessen

I saw one of my favorite writers this weekend at Politics and Prose in DC. She’s a Young Adult fiction writer named Sarah Dessen, and she happens to be from the town where I grew up. We even went to the same high school (although a lot of years apart). When I was a kid I read a lot–and much of it was young adult fiction. There are a lot of books in that genre, but what I love about Sarah Dessen is that her books have substance. Her characters (almost all of whom are young women) are strong, independent, smart and interesting. She tackles real issues, like divorce, intimate partner violence and substance abuse, but without it feeling forced or like a public service announcement. You might know her work from the Mandy Moore movie, How to Deal (which is based on two of her books combined).
I still read her new books as they come out, even though I’m much out of her target audience age. While I still enjoy them, I do wish they had more to say about things like race and sexual orientation. While Sarah does a good job of portraying women from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, the main characters of the books are generally straight and white. Kind of like the town we grew up in.
Did you read YA Fiction growing up? Who were some of your favorite authors?