Title: This Song Will Save Your Life
Author: Leila Sales
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Release Date: September 17, 2013
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Source: ARC Received from publisher in exchange for honest review

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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.


DJing is not something I know w lot about, and I will not pretend to know anything about. But I honestly think that we got a taste of it in this novel. I am not going to lie, when I saw the hype surrounding this book I was little skeptical, because hype almost always ruins books. And I didn't want to go into with super high expectations. But honestly I don't think it matter because I loved this book even more than I thought possible.

Elise is not a character that I have read before, only because she is desperately honest with us the readers, and you don't see that very much. I loved that it was like Elise was talking directly to us, trying to get us to understand why she has done what had done. And I thought it was a refreshing way to look at the struggles of feeling lost, or in Elise's case normal. Elise's voice was desperate yet understandable. I did not think I would relate to her, especially after her "incident" but I did. I felt for her and the struggles she dealt with on a daily basis.

I am a music junkie, so when I started reading and saw all the musical references I was ecstatic, and I thought it was a great way to get to know Elise, through her musical taste. And her get caught up in DJing was a bonus for me, because I learned so much about the culture and what so many people love it.

Friendship was a very big part of this book, not only because it was so hard for Elise to have any, but because of how easily she fit into the scene and gravitated towards certain people. In that atmosphere Elise found herself, and I loved reading that. Although not everything was sunshine and rose, very far from actually, this story felt extremely real and heartfelt. At certain moments in the story I felt my fingers gripping the book so hard that I lost the feeling in the tips of my fingers. I was emotionally invested before I knew what hit me, and for me that is a sign of an amazing writer.

This book is a must read for all contemporary lovers, and if you haven't had luck with this genre lately, this book will blow everything else out of the water. This book will change the way you look at the genre, and I guarantee you will compare all other books to this one. It was THAT good!