This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales

This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales
Series: No
Publisher: Macmillan
Publication Date: October 10th 2013
Source: Bought

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. 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 – DJ’ing.

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.

This Song Will Save Your Life was one of those books that I kept looking at but I wasn't sure whether I wanted to read it or not. But, when Jess from JessHeartsBooks recommended it to me I knew I just had to grab myself a copy. I'm so glad I did because I ended up absolutely loving this book.

This Song Will Save Your Life follows our main character Elise who is an outsider. Elise has always dreamed of fitting in and being popular and decides to reinvent herself for her new school. But Elise's attempts to fit in fail and she gives up. She contemplates suicide and then ends up being kept out of school for a while with her parents constantly watching over her. When Elise is taking one of her secret midnight walks she stumbles upon a secret warehouse party. Elise makes real friends for the first time in her life and finds something that she's passionate about - DJ'ing. Elise starts to spend every Thursday night at the party and hurts her relationship with her father because she finally feels like she fits in. But soon, Elise's real and secret lives collide and she has to decide what she wants.

Elise was a fantastic main character, but I will say that there were times when I didn't like her. All Elise has ever wanted is to fit in and I really felt for her. No matter what she did she never managed to fit in and that really tugged at my heart. She's such a vulnerable and lonely character, but she's such an amazing person too. But, there were times when I thought she was being selfish, shallow and attention seeking. Elise acknowledged that herself though which is why it didn't bother me too much because she realised throughout the book that she was acting like that and set out to change it. But Elise grew and grew throughout the book. She became stronger, felt like she had a purpose and had something she was passionate about. By the end, I was extremely proud of Elise.

Elise's romantic relationship in this book definitely wasn't perfect. First of all, the guy she was with was older than her and he basically took advantage of her vulnerability. Elise let him because she didn't know any different. She was young, naive and thought that Char cared for her. Second of all, he messed her around. Most of the time I just wanted to punch Char and tell Elise to get rid of him, but her relationship with Char was extremely important for her character development. I loved how Leila had a love interested who was extremely flawed instead of completely perfect. It was a nice change.

I adored seeing Elise start to make friends. Poppy and Vicky were brilliant. They were older than Elise, but I just loved them - especially Vicky. Right from the start they seemed to love Elise and they even remembered who she was the second time Elise went to the warehouse party. Seeing Elise actually fitting in made me so happy and made me want to cry. I was so glad that Elise had found her place in the world. Elise's main passion was DJ'ing and she was brilliant at it. Seriously, she didn't even have a lot of practice and she was doing a great job! I loved seeing her doing something that made her happy. Elise's passion for DJ'ing led her to lie to her parents and led to a big fight between her and her dad. Elise was so focused of fitting in that she went to extreme lengths to 'help' her sister and it was horrible to see her like that. I understood why she did it, but that doesn't mean I liked it. Elise had a lot of issues to work through and it was amazing seeing her coming out a different person at the end.

The ending left me in tears because I was so happy. There were also a few other times that almost had me in tears throughout the book because I was either upset for Elise or something horrible happened. I can honestly say I was completely in awe of this book. 

Overall, this is definitely one of my favourite books of the year. This Song Will Save Your Life is definitely one of those books that I'd recommend to everyone because it was realistic, beautifully written and had a very important message.