This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales

This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales
Genre: Contemporary
Release Date: September 17, 2013
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Source: Bought
Add it: Goodreads
Rating:

All her life, Elise Dembowski has been an outsider. Starting a new school, she dreams of fitting in at last – but when her best attempts at popularity fail, she almost gives up. Then she stumbles upon a secret warehouse party. There, at night, Elise can be a different person, making real friends, falling in love for the first time, and finding her true passion – DJ’ing.
But when her real and secret lives collide, she has to make a decision once and for all: just who is the real Elise?

An irresistible novel about hope, heartbreak and the power of music to bring people together.

I picked up This Song Will Save Your Life because I wanted a quick contemporary read, and that’s exactly what I got. TSWSYL is about a girl called Elise who is bullied and ignored by her classmates, and has been her whole life, and it starts off when she tries to kill herself. The book then jumps forward six months or so, when Elise starts going to a 21+ club on Thursday nights and tries her hand at DJ-ing.

As I have been telling people, I did enjoy this book. I enjoyed it a lot. I just didn’t love it, and I thought some parts of the story were very unrealistic. I also disliked most of the characters so that’s grand. But I went in wanted a quick and easy read and that’s what this book is for the most part.

Elise isn’t a character that I particularly connected with, but I did cry over her at the end because some of things she was saying really resonated with me. There’s a quote at the very end that I took a photo of because it was flawless, but I can’t share it with you because of spoilers. And then the last line of the book… !!! It’s going to be featured in my Famous Last Words feature because I adored it.

Like I said, some parts of the story were very unrealistic. I am talking about the fact that Elise gets a job at the club as a DJ, in particular, because I’m pretty sure if you’re 16 and living in the US you can’t work past a certain time, and the club closed in the early morning. And then there’s also the fact that Elise was absolutely phenomenal at everything she did. She said that this was because she worked hard, but with the DJ stuff especially, she practised for a handful of days and then suddenly she was better than the guy who had been doing it for years. Okay then. Sure. Whatever.

This Song Will Save Your Life is a good book, but it’s not a favourite of mine. The beginning was difficult to read, especially since I was in public, because Elise describes how she’s cutting herself and it made me very uncomfortable. Not that that’s a bad thing, but you should go in warned, in my opinion. But I flew through the book and ended up really enjoying it, and even crying over the last page.