This Song Will Save Your Life
Ratings20
Average rating4
15
Ratings20
Average rating4
A powerful coming-of-age story about an outsider who finds herself when she enters the underground music scene. "Very much of the moment.” —The New York Times "If you’re a music junkie who also loves YA, read it alongside Len Vlahos’s The Scar Boys or Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park.” —Janet Geddis, Avid Bookshop “Sales gets everything right.” —MTV.com Making friends has never been Elise Dembowski's strong suit. All throughout her life, she's been the butt of every joke and the outsider in every conversation. When a final attempt at popularity fails, Elise nearly gives up. Then she stumbles upon a warehouse party where she meets Vicky, a girl in a band who accepts her; Char, a cute, yet mysterious disc jockey; Pippa, a carefree spirit from England; and most importantly, a love for DJing. Told in a refreshingly genuine and laugh-out-loud funny voice, Leila Sales' This Song Will Save Your Life powerful young adult coming of age novel is an exuberant story about identity, friendship, and the power of music to bring people together. Praise for This Song Will Save Your Life: “The emotional resonance of Elise's journey . . . feels very much of the moment.” —The New York Times “Heartbreaking, heartfelt, and eventually heart-lifting, this YA novel is one I won’t soon forget. If you’re a music junkie who also loves YA, read it alongside Len Vlahos’s The Scar Boys or Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park.” —Janet Geddis, Avid Bookshop “Pulsates with hope for all the misfits.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Readers will be fascinated and touched by the first-person voice because of what is roiling beneath it. . . . Teens will connect with [Elise] viscerally.” —Booklist, starred review “Sales gets everything right.” —MTV.com “A wild, witty, funny, thumping good read.” —Adele Griffin, two-time National Book Award Finalist “Edgy and irresistible. If this book were a song, I’d have it on repeat with the volume all the way up.” —Sarah Mlynowski, author of Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn’t Have) “A perfect harmony of laugh-out-loud moments, heartbreak, and hope.” —Eileen Cook, author of Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood “A vibrant, powerful dance party of a novel.” —Jess Rothenberg, author of The Catastrophic History of You and Me “A remarkable story about the power of truth, friendship, and music—to transform us, to inspire us, to guide us back to who we are.” —Rebecca Serle, author of When You Were Mine “A sweet, funny story about finding yourself in a crowd, owning your talents, and rocking out on the dance floor of life.” —Madeleine George, author of The Difference Between You and Me A YALSA Best Book for Young Adults A BuzzFeed Best YA Book of the Year A CCBC Choice Also by Leila Sales Tonight the Streets Are Ours If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say Once Was a Time Past Perfect Mostly Good Girls
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Reviews with the most likes.
look up the triggers for this book before reading it holy shit....
i was really enjoying this until a man in his 20s knowingly dated a sophomore girl... fuck that
My arc copy expired and I've bought my own copy since then. I'll finish it in the next few weeks.
First off, I really enjoyed my time reading this book and I thought it was a very sweet and well-done YA contemporary, although not groundbreaking or massively original. I wish I had read this book back when I was 13 because I know I would have absolutely loved it then, which is a little bit of my problem with it now. The main character, Elise, is 16, but she seems more like 12 or 13. Most of her thoughts and feelings seem very much at the surface and there isn't a whole lot of depth or discussion with her, which is more of what I would expect from middle grade. All of the things that happen to her in school as well definitely don't seem like they take place in a high school setting and much more like a middle school. I had to suspend my disbelief for a lot of this story with many of the different plot points. I did enjoy how much music was a part of this story and I listened to The Smiths the entire time while reading it. The writing was not terrible by any means but had that very dramatic and angsty tone of a teenager without any sort of refinement or real “writing” put into it. That's no necessarily a bad thing, but it made the reading less enjoyable for me, at least. One thing I can't stop thinking about with this book is the (suicide attempt) at the beginning of the book. It was very graphic and I found it to be very triggering and I didn't know about it going in. I wish I had so I could have been more prepared. But all that aside, I really did have a good time with this book. It was a quick read that reminded me of my emo middle school days and I can definitely see the merit in it. Just a bit more polishing could have made this book much better.
