This Song Will Save Your Life

by Leila Sales

All her life, Elise Dembowski has been an outsider. Starting a new school, she dreams of fitting in at last - but when her best attempts at popularity fail, she almost gives up. In a cry for help, she self-harms, and when news of that gets around school, things get even worse for Elise.

But then she stumbles upon a secret warehouse party. There, at night, Elise can be a different person, making real friends, falling in love for the first time, and finding her true passion - DJing.

But when her real and secret lives collide, she has to make a decision once and for all: just who is the real Elise?

An irresistible novel about hope, heartbreak and the power of music to bring people together.

• ISBN10: 125005074X
• ISBN13: 9781250050748
• Publish Date: 14 April 2015 (first published 17 September 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Square Fish
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[Nessa Luna]

Read this review, and many more on my blog October Tune!

I had heard a lot of people saying good things about this book, so though normally I don’t read contemporary books that quickly, I bought it at TBD near the end of last year. It took a while to arrive (some problems with my first copy being lost in the mail and an email that didn’t arrive), but when I did get it, I started it immediately.

I immediately found myself relating to Elise a lot. I had had a similar youth, it was difficult for me to fit in, and every time I did fit in, something would go wrong and I would have to start all over again. I did have some friends throughout the years, but I kept on losing them because of stupid fights, and I never really thought they were ‘real’ friends.

And like Elise, the thing that kept me going was music. I am not an awesome DJ like Elise is, but I found some bands that were (and still are) amazing and through those bands I met new people, some of which I am still friends with right now. I could safely say that those bands saved my life.

I hated almost all of the characters (apart from the people at Start, and Elise’s family of course), because they all reminded me of people from my high school. The fact that the principal (or vice-principal) acted all like there wasn’t really much to do when Elise was being bullied, reminded me so much of the teachers at my schools.

The story was very well written, I really wanted to keep on reading and reading, but ended up having to stop myself because I needed sleep.

I do want to give everyone a slight trigger warning, though. Because at the beginning of the book, Elise decides that she wants to kill herself, so she goes home and cuts herself with a scalpel.
The end of this book just made me really happy, because after all those bad things, Elise finally had some things to smile about, she finally found things worth living for. And so did I.

I definitely recommend it to anyone, because it’s just a really good book!

[KitsuneBae]

Never thought that this one would drain me.

[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

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This Song Will Save Your Life is going to be a really important book to a lot of people, because it's a book with a really important message. If you've read it, I'm sure it touched you in some way -- maybe it touched your heart because it's a message you needed to hear 10 years ago, still resonating today. Maybe it's a message you needed to hear now, that arrived right when you needed it. For me, I think it's both those things.

Elise Dembowski is a high school sophomore, who wants nothing more than to fit in with the people around her. She's been in school with the same group of people since kindergarten, and has always been an outsider. She knows what it's like to be alone and invisible, but also what it's like to be the center of attention, the butt of people's cruel jokes. Because of the way she's isolated from her peers, she's come to truly believe that there's something wrong with her, with the way she is, with her likes and dislikes and interests and clothes and bearing. She thinks she needs to change, to be normal, and then everyone will accept her.

Tell me you've never had that feeling before. *crickets* Yeah I didn't think so.

I don’t belong here. I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t know how long I can stay before everyone else realizes that I am an impostor. I am a fraud.

Teen-Me would have really benefited from This Song Will Save Your Life, I think. But Present-Me also needed the reminder this book drove home. This Song is a story about finding yourself; but more importantly, it's about accepting yourself, and being okay with -- or rather, owning -- being who you are. Knowing you have strengths that are worthwhile, and important. It's a beautiful reminder -- for anyone who struggles or has struggled with self-doubt, loneliness, or low self-esteem -- that you are worth it.

Whether it's a constant battle for you, or something you struggle with off and on, or something that only occasionally hits you if you're out of your element -- we've all been there at some point. For those of us who struggle with it more constantly, this book is one that says, "You may feel alone in your struggle, but you're not. You may think you're not worth it, but you are. You may think your life isn't going to get better, but it will."

Elise finally begins to find her way by accident one night, when she stumbles onto a couple of girls hanging out outside a weekly underground dance club called Start. To her huge surprise, these girls end up befriending her, and Start becomes her sanctuary, filled with other people who share her interests and who want to be her friend, not because of someone she pretends to be, but because of who she is. They see her value and her talent and want to help her become the person she wants to be, which is what sets her on the right course.

But even in the course of becoming accepted into this new group of friends, she still struggles with believing that she's worthy of being there, that someone would truly care enough to want to spend time with her, when she's seen plenty of prior evidence to the contrary.

So he had invited me here, I reminded myself. But still. That didn’t mean he actually wanted me here.

One of her new friends is a guy called Char, the DJ at Start. Elise's passion is music, and after she meets Char, she's immediately interested in DJing. With his help, she discovers that she has a natural talent for it.

Now, I don't want to give anything away, but I just have to make this one point. Most of the contemporaries I've read have a romantic element to them -- once the main character finds a guy who likes her and accepts her, that's a main reason why she ends up pulling her life back together. In This Song, there is a bit of a love-story between Elise and Char. But don't go into this book expecting it to be about a love-story. It is absolutely not. And I think that's incredibly important.

Having a white knight in shining armor swoop into the main character's life, sweep her off her feet, and make her realize that she's not alone, that she's worth something - that's great. I love those stories. But I think it's also really important to realize that finding "someone special" is not the be-all and end-all of one's journey to self-acceptance. I think it's important that people also realize that they can come to that conclusion on their own, and not depend on one person to help them get there. This Song emphasizes Elise's strength as an individual, to find her way and make her own mistakes and ultimately accept herself, independent from her personal relationships.

 

One quick note: You might have noticed, this book deals a lot with music. ;) That sometimes worries me in books, because if I'm not familiar with the songs being referenced -- especially when they're a hugely influential part of the book -- I have trouble connecting based on lack of knowledge. However, I am incredibly happy to say that, in this case, my lack of knowledge about Elise's favorite music didn't affect me in the slightest. Music just happens to be what Elise is passionate about, but I found the way it was treated, including all the DJing and musical jargon going on, to be just part of the general story, rather than a specialized thing you have to understand in order to follow the book. I may not be familiar with the bands Elise loves, or know what the heck she was learning to do with the turntables when she was learning how to DJ, but it's so applicable to any other creative passion and application of that passion, I could relate easily.

 

In conclusion...

I think it's obvious that I really loved this book. Anyone who feels like the outsider, who's been alone, who's felt "less than" everyone else, who's wanted to change because they don't fit in -- I think they'd deeply relate to Elise and her situation. She goes through some really dark times, especially in the first couple chapters, in which she's pretty sure she wants to kill herself to escape the constant alone-ness of her life. But very quickly, she realizes that's not what she wants. She wants desperately to be able to be herself, to be accepted for who she is. Her happiness was never going to come from changing herself into someone else, into one of those people who made her feel so isolated in the first place. But rather, she found her happiness by accepting herself, and showing the world who she really was.

Sometimes people think they know you. They know a few facts about you, and they piece you together in a way that makes sense to them. And if you don’t know yourself very well, you might even believe that they are right. But the truth is, that isn’t you. That isn’t you at all.

[nitzan_schwarz]

2013 cleaning my shelves challenge

To read this review and more, check out my blog!

I cannot think of one bad thing to say about this book. Honestly, I'd hoped it'll be good; but I never dreamed it will be this good. If you are a fan of contemporaries and coming-of-age stories, Elise's journey is one you mustn't miss out on.

This is going to be a tad personal, because of the nature of this book. For those who don't like personal reviews... *shrug* can't help but talk about these subjects, sorry!

This Song Will Save Your Life is narrated by Elise, who was quite possibly the most relate-able character I've ever read of. I know about self-hatred. I know what it's like to think that there must be something wrong with you, for everyone to treat you the way they do. In fact, I was Elise, The invisible one, the one who had no actual validation that she existed because she was no one. Because the walls had more people talking to them than she did. So I know what she's talking about, and I'm glad to say--or maybe not so glad, because this is such a horrible situation--that this book captured the feeling and voice of being that person perfectly. So perfectly that I hurt, and was sometime transported back in time to when things were that rough for me too.

“Sometimes, when you are worn down, day after day, relentlessly, with no reprieve for years piled on years, sometimes you lose everything but the ability to cry.”

So, yes, Elise feels so much hatred and depression, such acute numbness, that one day she decides to kill herself. That doesn't work, but...
To read the rest of this review, go here!

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews

Wow! This Song Will Save Your Life was such a powerful book! I have to admit, it had so much more depth to it than I ever imagined. I mean... so many plot summaries out there say things like this:

[book title] is a super amazing book about identity and friendship and the power of [noun] to bring people together!

But how many times is that actually true? Usually it's a bit of an exaggeration (at least to me), and I rarely connect with the book that much. This was so not the case with This Song Will Save Your Life!. This book did make me feel. It was about identity and friendship. And music truly did bring people together in that happy tears kind of way.

This Song Will Save Your Life starts off about bullying. Not just bullying, but a bit of depression, suicide, and struggling to get through high school. I really felt for Elise! It's been a long time since I really and truly connected with a character. She made me feel ALL THE FEELS! She's kind of the invisible, sometimes-bullied girl in high school. She doesn't have any friends and certainly isn't "popular". Even when she did make friends, they weren't really friends. They were the people you can sit with at lunch and have "filler" conversations with, but they weren't that awesome BFF-type friends. I totally got that!!

I wasn't bullied in high school, but I had the hardest time making friends. My problem was that I was picky. I didn't just want any friend.. I wanted a friend who was like my soul sister.. someone who loved to read and loved video games, but could also still chat about boys and just whatever! I swear no one like that existed at my high school X_X And I didn't want to have "fake", "filler" friendships with people who weren't interested in the same things I was. UGH! Anyway.. I totally got where Elise was coming from. She just wanted a BFF! Is that too much to ask for? Certainly not!

And I love how music was the thing that really changed Elise's life. She stumbled upon music and friends totally accidentally, but they ended up grounding her and rocking her world.

There was kind of a meh half romance in This Song Will Save Your Life but it's not really prominent enough to warrant talking about it in depth. I kind of wrote it off as a bad "let's learn from this experience" romance. Lol. It was a bit of a bummer to not have a solid romance because I like having romance in everything I read, but the rest of the book was phenomenal so I'll let it slide!

I definitely recommend This Song Will Save Your Life if you're into books about fitting in and just making your way through the horrors of high school! Plus.. music. Music! Any music fans will love this! It's so easy to breeze right through this book and it will keep you interested every step of the way.