This Song Will Save Your Life

What I Loved:
Just the other day on Twitter, I mentioned the fact that I couldn't really think of any YA heroines whose high school experience in any way recalled my own, and along comes This Song Will Save Your Life. For this reason, This Song was a really personal read for me, one that I found immensely moving, comforting, and beautiful. As a teenager, I wish Leila Sales' book had already been out, because it would have immensely helped and comforted my teenage self.

In the opening chapter of This Song Will Save Your Life, the reader meets Elise Dembowski, an incredibly unhappy but brilliant girl. Elise does not struggle academically and has a loving family; her divorced parents have worked out a great system, and do the best they can for her. However, Elise has never fit in with the other kids at school, and she's sick of being friendless and lonely. Being a girl who generally can accomplish anything she sets her mind to, she spends the whole summer learning how to be cool and just like the other kids. However, the first day of sophomore year does not go as planned and Elise decides to skip the second half of the day and commit suicide, all hope lost. And, I promise, this really is all in the first chapter.

Now, this may seem melodramatic to you, but all of this resonated with me so incredibly strongly. I see so much of myself in Elise Dembowski: her bitterness and desperation, her thoughts that maybe it won't be better and that it would be best to end it all. In my case, I never seriously contemplated suicide, but I did think about it, imagining everyone fraught with guilt and sadness that they never appreciated me in life. Like Elise, I really didn't have friends and could not understand why everyone was either antagonistic to me or completely ignored me. In her, I see what I also later learned about myself: the fact that part of the reason people avoided me was my own attitude, one I hardly realized I had. Though I was not actively bullied like Elise (at least in high school), everything she felt and experienced was so close to my own life in that period.

From there, Elise's experience no longer mirrors my own, but continues to be emotionally resonant and touching. This Song Will Save Your Life really is a story of a girl finding herself and discovering her passions. She's learning to accept who she is and how much happier life is when you stop judging yourself by the rules of society, and do and be what makes you happy. Accepting society's definition of yourself is so easy to do; learning to reject this is a crucial life lesson. I myself learned that in college and I have been so much more satisfied with life since, because I could finally quit chasing after things I don't actually want just because society says I should want them.

Unlike so much YA fiction, This Song Will Save Your Life focuses much more on family and friendship than on romance. I love Elise's family so much. Sales depicts a healthy example of both divorce and remarriage. Both her single father and her mother, remarried with two more children, love her and take good care of her. Elise's family situation is healthy, and, even when Elise misbehaves, they support her and really do encourage her in her pursuits. Even Elise's little siblings are adorable, and her relations with her younger sister Alex broke my heart.

With regards to friendship, Sales presents a realistic portrayal of high school dynamics. There's the stereotypical mean girl and brutish jocks, as well as the outcasts. However, Sales goes beyond the stereotypes and shows the ways that people can surprise you if you let them. Again, Elise's journey highlights the way that she pushes people away without realizing she's doing so, all the time desperately wishing for someone to like her.

Finally, the romance, which me being the person I am, I can't not talk about. Elise differs so greatly from the average YA heroine. There's not an instaloving bone in her body. She clearly distinguishes between lust and love. When a guy does something questionable, she will call him on it, being the forthright person she is. For once, I understand the motivations and logic of a YA heroine in her reactions with guys. All I'll say is that the romance was handled perfectly, precisely the way I hoped, and entirely in an atypical way for young adult novels.

The Final Verdict:
This Song Will Save Your Life is a book that I could see saving lives. I sincerely hope that young people who are friendless and desperate, who do not understand why no one likes them, find this book and know that they're not alone. It will get better, maybe not as soon as it did for Elise, but, out there in the world, there are kindred spirits and, if you hold on, you'll find them.

TSWSYL is the story of Elise Dembowski’s struggle and ultimate success with finding herself, embracing identity, and making herself happy. Elise has never been cool. She has never been even close to a cool kid. She has been bullied, tormented, picked on, and ridiculed for as long as she can remember. Elise is good at things – usually too good. She can pick up an instrument in a weekend, master a craft practically overnight, and ace most of her tests at the same time. She likes boots with unicorns on them and sequin-embellished belts. This does not make her cool.

The summer before her sophomore year Elise decides that she will be cool this year. All she needs to do is practice. So she does – she treats coolness like homework, and studies-studies-studies, shops for trendy clothes, watches trendy movies, reads the newest fashion magazines, and stalks trendy blogs online. When the first day of the school year arrive, Elise feels ready to change. But nothing does. She is still Elise Dembowski, insult magnet and unfashionable smart kid that no one likes. Elise decides that day to kill herself. She tries – and doesn’t – and nothing changes.

The narrative of Elise’s thoughts is mesmerizing. Page-turning. So real and honest and blunt.

"All I wanted was to listen to music, but wearing headphones makes you look cut off from the rest of the world, antisocial. I wasn’t going to be antisocial this year. I was decidedly pro-social.”

“Just keep walking, I told myself. It’s like when Lizzie Reardon calls your name in the hallway. Just keep walking. Think invisible, and if you’re lucky maybe you will become invisible."

Elise could be any bullied high school girl, but she’s not – she’s different. And that kind of different that makes her even more unpopular is what draws you into her mind.

"Here are all the dance floor experiences I’ve had so far in my life:

1. Ruining the Tiny Dancers year-end recital at the YMCA when I was six years old because I didn’t know how to skip.

2. Going to a school dance in 7th grade, where they played songs like ‘Shake Your Ass,’ only with the word ass bleeped out, and everybody grinded up on everybody else, except nobody grinded up on me.

So, for what I think are some pretty good reasons, I don’t dance."

This was one of my favorite books from 2013. I daresay that it might be my favorite book I’ve read this year. I know, it’s not even February, but when you read a book entirely in one sitting, cried after just the first chapter, and then want to read it again the next day there is definitely something important going on. And that’s what happened.

I could really relate to Elise. There was so much she did and said that most people just don’t say or do, and I could really relate. Because I do those things and say those things. I have always been picked on for being smart. I hate that feeling, and Elise does, too. She really doesn’t understand why it happens, and I am only just now starting to. Elise’s relationship with Char is so unlike most YA romances, but it is so real. It is was really happens between girls who are distant from their families, who have few to no friends, and guys who are so disconnected from their girls. Vicki and Pippa adopting Elise into their circle was so like what happened to me in high school when I found my best group of friends. There is just so much to relate to, for teens and older young adults, and yet so much to learn from Elise, as well.

In the end, I was so happy with TSWSYL. I shut the book feeling satisfied, complete, and triumphant because Elise won in the end. She found herself, she embraced what she loved and what she wanted and who she really was, and that made her happy. It wasn’t easy, or fast, or without heartbreak and struggle and fighting, but she made it happen.

I highly recommend TSWSYL to teens who want a contemporary story, a realistic romance, a coming-of-age adventure, or just a really good book. I would also recommend it to older young adults who are fans of music, dancing, and who may feel a little like a DJ sometimes.

Oh Leila Sales, I will never tire of your books, even when you go off in a kind of different direction. This Song Will Save Your Life is more serious than Leila Sales other novels, and it is another absolute stunner. While I don't think it has quite beat my love for Mostly Good Girls, it still is an excellent read overall, and really I just have to say, who but Leila Sales could write a book about DJing and bring out all the feels? Oh, just love!

I LOVED the contents of this book - LOVED. Seriously, how many other books that have DJing in them out there are there? Not many I'll tell you. It was different and definitely drew me in. I wasn't instantly drawn in - instead, This Song Will Save Your Life was a slow build sort of book, and by the end, I was so invested there was no going back.

I loved that even though This Song Will Save Your Life deals with a much more serious topic than Leila Sales's other books, it still contains that sense of humor and the light lilting writing. Leila Sales has such a unique, beautiful style of writing and I adore it.

You can do no wrong with a Leila Sales book! This is me signing off to begin my countdown for another winner from one of my favorite authors.

THIS SONG WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE is one of those stories about how the awkward, friendless teenager comes to love herself. The main character is Elise, who spends her summer trying to turn herself into a new girl, a “popular” girl, before the new school year. This attempt to be someone else, needless to say fails, and the rest of the book is spent trying to become her again.

As far as the story line and plot goes, it was good. It’s not a new concept but Leila Sales managed to do it in a different way, and if not a very deep one, at least an entertaining one. Most of the supporting characters were well written as well. Not many of them seemed particularly realistic, but that actually worked in this book. A few of them were a bit eye roll inducing, but that’s forgivable. The reason that it is so forgivable is Elise. Because the story is in first person she is narrating it and that part of her character I liked just fine. But in her dealings with the other characters, she was just plain catty and frankly unlikeable especially when it came to her family. This put a real damper on the book in general, and the inconsistency is frustrating.

THIS SONG is a story of self discovery and of individuality. It’s about being yourself even if you aren't who you wanted to be. Although it was well written for the most part, it’s not one of my personal favorites, but it’s worth a shot.