Friday, January 31, 2014

Review | This Song Will Save Your Life

This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales
Review by Ini
Sepetember 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
288 pages
Amazon + Good  Reads

"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."
-Good Reads

I've been seeing a lot people raving about This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales and that made me want to read it. I managed to snag a copy from my library although a lot of patrons placed a hold of this book. It's one of the perks of being a good friend of a librarian. I returned home with excitement to devour the story. Well, I felt the book was over-hyped for me and I was little let down after finishing the book, nevertheless Sales writing was good. Although I wasn't greatly impressed, some parts of the story punched me right in the feels and brought back memories of my past.

Elsie Dembowski is starting her sophomore year of high school. Elsie has grown up as a different person from others. She spent the entire summer trying to change her herself-to learn all the latest bands, to get into latest fashion by trying on new clothes. It is a perfect coming-of-age novel. Elise was ignored by all in her school yet she manages to fit in a small group of friends. The one which I'm able to connect is that during my high school years I've been trying to teach myself something or other just to keep up with the people around me. Elise lives in messy family with divorced parents and she keeps shunting between her dad's and mom's place. With all these around her, she finds the real serenity in music. 

Elise stumbles upon an underground club and soon she learns to DJ. With her love for music, it has become her ideal spot. Elise meets Vicky, a carefree girl at the club and slowly their friendship grows stronger. I found the story to be little dragging until Vicky's introduction. Elise meets char, at the underground club and soon he teaches her to DJ and becomes more than a friend to her. As far as romance in this novel, is completely different from many other contemporaries. 

This Song Will Save Your Life would be an emotional journey for a lot others, but to me I couldn't phrase it either as something special or run-of-the-mill contemporary, it's something in the midway of the two. If there's something I liked about this book, it definitely should be the secondary characters: Vicky, and Pipa ( Vicky's friend) and their progress through the story, and then those bullies in school are utterly true.

I certainly had issues with This Song Will Save Your Life. It lacked the spark which I expect in every novel. Let me put it this way, a teen angst with the infusion of nuances in romance. Quite frankly, I felt that Elise's life was a humdrum and reading her story, began to have somewhat soporific effect on me. Well, I still would recommend this book to Sales fans and contemporary books clique.

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