One Last Song

by S K Falls

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

One Last Song was very interesting. It's a book that I've had my eye on for awhile (when it was still Secret for a Song), and finally got around to. I just had to know more about Saylor. She has Munchhausen Syndrome, which is something I didn't have much experience with, so I was very curious. Some of the things Saylor did to herself made me squirm. I know it's a mental illness, but it's so hard to wrap my head around someone wanting to swallow needles or inject themselves with saliva.

One Last Song starts with Saylor dropping out of school and moving back home. She can't be trusted on her own, so she's back with her parents and seeing a new therapist. Since she has nothing to do now, Saylor decides that she wants to volunteer at the hospital. Of course, she wants to be in the actual hospital with the patients and hopefully gain access to some supplies. She also is just enamored with cancer, since it's your own body turning on itself: a "luxury" she'll never have. Her therapist isn't going to allow that though, so she's stuck in the group therapy rooms. And it's there where she can finally be the terminally ill person that she wishes she could be. At least for pretend, since she says she has MS, technically not a lie, although everyone assumes she means multiple sclerosis and she lets them.

While I was fascinated with Saylor, and uncomfortable with her, I had to wonder why this all started. Yes, we get the first time she did anything to make herself sick for attention. And we learn all about how her parents are distant and she just wants their love. But that's all in the present. We don't see their neglect of her as a child. She swallows a needle when she's seven to get attention from her mom, but what led to that? She says lack of love and attention, but there's never any flashbacks or stories about that before time. I think that would have made Saylor's story feel more real and believable.

There is a romance at the center of One Last Song, and I did enjoy it. Drew has FA, which is quickly progressing. He refuses to be in a wheelchair though he's struggling to walk. He's also a musician and is losing control of his hands, but he's proud and refuses help most of the time. Of course, he thinks Saylor is sick and that they share that, and Saylor plays along. But she does fall for him, and I believed her! Their romance also keeps her occupied and she doesn't spend so much time obsessing on ways to end up in the hospital. Although, I didn't quite believe her near miraculous recovery at the end. Her secret comes out, she loses Drew, and then she's better? I believe that she wanted to get better especially after that conversation with her mother, but there's no hints of her harming herself again after that.

I really did enjoy One Last Song. It was mostly the subject matter that kept me interested, rather than the story itself. I read it in only two sittings, because I just could not look away from what Saylor was doing. While the physical stuff she did to herself made me squirm, I was completely engrossed in her living this lie of being terminally ill. I found it fascinating that she knew she was lying, but somehow seemed to make it all real.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.