Book Review: This Song Will Save Your Life - Leila Sales

Title: This Song Will Save Your Life
Author: Leila Sales
Pub Date: September 17th 2013
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Page Count: 288

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, THIS SONG WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE is an exuberant novel about identity, friendship, and the power of music to bring people together.

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Leila Sales gives teens a new, inspiring voice through Elise Dembowski.
- Nova @ Musings of a Blogder

As a reader, I feel like a talent to have is a writing style that is both intelligent and "teenage-like". It's important to be able to connect with the reader in the sense where they have a reason to keep reading; they have a connection to everything. This story is so eerily relatable that I just had an urge to pause reading out of fear that'd I'd burst into tears.

Elise is a girl who craves popularity. She's never been popular and wants to be noticed. I can't say that I'm much different from her which makes this such a great book. But people who crave popularity rarely do crave actual popularity; they crave happiness. Popular people give off the impression that they're always happy, surrounded by friends and never insecure. Because I've learned this, I connect so well with this story. Elise's got insecurities, people don't like her, no one sites with her during lunch and it's all the "cliches" displayed in a way where readers go: yeah, I can totally relate. Even if it's called a "cliche", it's real. It makes her likeable towards some but I realize that it could come off as pathetic to those who have never experienced the whole "crave popularity" thing and that's understandable.

The actual storyline is quite inspiring. Instead of being hardcore, it also involves some humor from Elise and steady progression. It isn't completely "good" or completely bad because inside Elise's head, there's a slowly climbing path for her to discover herself. The storyline also has a lot of problems involved but somehow, Leila finds a subtle way to tie ever

My problem with this novel comes with development. So much of this book is spent on developing Elise so a lot of the other characters fall flat. Secondary characters were used when plot needed them but other than that were kind of off to the corner. They weren't developed and quite useless even. It was like Elise was the story and those secondary characters were the scenery. I chose to ignore them (mostly) but still, it bugs me.

Another problem that I had was Char.

As the ML of sorts, I expected him to be the love interest. For me, he showed signs and I was very surprised, but not complaining when she totally dumped him. I just didn't like him and he really wasn't likeable either. I felt like the relationship between Elise and Char were far too forward and he was making her do things that she didn't want to do. He even got jealous of her because she got an opportunity that he didn't get. While he was in the story, I was pretty pissed off at a lot of the things that he did. And the worst part is that I don't even know if it was intentional. The ending did make me smile.

This book also has a huge tie in with music. I've always believed that music can do so much for us (yes, I have written essays) and for people that feel like Elise. I wholeheartedly agree with the title. A song can actually really save your life and I've talked to people who've told me so. The songs chosen in this book have either been handpicked for situations or Leila is a music genius. Whichever it is, the music chosen had an amazing impact on the meaning behind the novel. I also recommend listening to the mentioned song in the background as your read. It actually makes a huge difference.

This Song Will Save Your Life can quite honestly, save your life. There is a depth in Elise from Leila Sales that so many authors would hope to achieve and she does it effortlessly. I strongly recommend this to anyone -especially people who are in a bad place.

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Leila Sales grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2006. Now she lives in Brooklyn, New York, and works in the mostly glamorous world of children's book publishing. Leila spends most of her time thinking about sleeping, kittens, dance parties, and stories that she wants to write.