This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales

I picked up This Song Will Save Your Life from the library because I had heard good things about it when it came out. I had wanted to read it but you know how life goes? Any I'm sad that I waited so long but super excited that I finally read This Song Will Save Your Life. I want to press this book into the hands of every young person who thinks their life sucks and say see you are not alone. I identified with Elise and I think a lot of other people will too.

Elise is in high school. She has no friends. Well she has 2 friends but they aren't really her friends. They are just all unpopular together. Elise has trouble sleeping so she wanders her town at night. One night she runs into 2 girls who think she's looking for the underground dance party they are headed to. There Elise finds a world where she belongs. Elise is finally happy until one day her whole school starts reading her blog, a blog that Elise isn't writing.

Elise could have been me in high school. I wasn't popular. I spent a lot of time, home alone with my parents. I could relate to not being the popular one. I understood Elise's suicidal thoughts. And just like Elise, music saved my life. Unlike Elise, I never attempted suicide but I remember feeling so alone and wondering why I couldn't be like everyone else. I wish This Song Will Save Your Life had been around then. I might have felt a little better.

I loved Elise. She's herself. In a world where people are trying to be like someone else, here's Elise, comfortable in her own skin. She's got her music. Yeah, life sucks. No boys like her. Her friends are obsessed with the popular kids. But when she finds Start, the underground dance party, her world opens up beyond high school. I loved how she found a world where she belonged. And some new friends who didn't see her as a loser, but as a beautiful person they wanted to hang out with.

I also loved Elise's family. Especially her parents. Ok, she was sneaking out of their houses at midnight to roam around her town. I found it so bizarre that no one noticed a 16 year old girl, wandering around at midnight. If I'd tried that someone would have spotted me. But her parents were cool and tried to help Elise especially when they realized that she not only found a way to cope but something she truly loved.

I loved This Song Will Save Your Life. If high school or college wasn't the best time of your life. If you thought that life might be better without you in it. If you ever felt left out, not like everyone else, the odd duck, then this book is for you. Being who you are and finding what you love is where it's at. Others who shared their thoughts on This Song Will Save Your Life: The Perpetual Page Turner, There Were Books Involved, and The Flyleaf Review.