Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Feb 08, 2012

Tatiana rated it:

As seen on The Readventurer

Frankly, I was taken aback by the synopsis of Sara Zarr's new novel when I first read it. Told from the perspectives of 2 teen girls - Mandy, who is pregnant and is considering to give up her baby for adoption, and Jill, the only daughter of a recently widowed woman who wants to take in Mandy's child - it felt just too cheaply 16 and Pregnant to me. Plus there are some themes in YA that I absolutely have no interest in reading about - teen pregnancy is right More...

14 comments like (33 people liked it)

Feb 04, 2012

Jo rated it:

“And here I am, all of those small hopes getting me from one day to the next, the way they my whole life.”

Initial Final Page Thoughts.
Wow. Captivating.

High Point.
The ladies. The gentlemen. Train stations. Raw. Emotional. Coffee. Pancakes. Pho. Old friends. New friends. Moving on. Siblings. Cornfields, Ferris wheels and stars.

Low Point.
This isn’t really a low point but I couldn’t really think of one so I’m clutching right now. The ending was More...

17 comments like (16 people liked it)

Sep 17, 2011

Catie rated it:

4 1/2 stars

Reading Sara Zarr reminds me of that old Hemingway quote, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Boy does she know how to do that. Only, she translates every emotion with such stark, raw purity that it feels like I am the one bleeding. Maybe not everyone has been a pregnant teenager with a dreadful home life or a hostile, sarcastic girl who’s just lost her closest support, but I think that it would be hard for anyone not to find More...

24 comments like (26 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2011

karen rated it:

i have no idea why i decided to read this book. it is not in my usual range of interests at all. i know i saw a number of positive reviews go past on this here website, but realistic YA is not usually my bag. i like my YA to take place in rubble-filled urban wastelands or in forests where threats take the form of monsters or other horrific desperations. i like my problems to be things i will never have to actually deal with. it soothes me. "run for your lives, kiddies!," i shout More...

10 comments like (33 people liked it)

Oct 19, 2011

Reynje rated it:

Some stories feel thinner than the paper they’re printed on. Without disrespect to the work that goes into crafting a novel, sometimes reading certain books can feel like nothing more than following words across paper. A perfunctory effort for a temporary experience - there’s nothing really holding me to the story.

Then there are stories that make me forget I’m reading, that draw me in beyond the paper and ink and binding. Stories that I both absorb and am absorbed into - an ex More...

23 comments like (19 people liked it)

Feb 21, 2012

Annalisa rated it:

I love Sara Zarr. The way she quietly weaves stories and settings and characters, always broken, ones you want to protect. Honest and raw. Shown not told. Stories you feel.

I normally don't pay much attention to titles, but this one stuck with me, and not just because I kept singing it. I thought it was perfect. All the characters caught up in their own grief and fears and Zarr set out to change them, to save them, through each other. I had an idea how it would all turn out, but I sti More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2011

Newengland rated it:

Lord. A book about pregnant teenagers. In my hands. Read by my eyes. How do I get myself into these things?

Starts out, I ordered the ARC (releases in 1/12) because of the cool cover. What's weird, though, is that the cover on Goodreads shows a girl on the bench to the right. My ARC shows two empty benches. < cue Twilight Zone music > I also thought the girls in my classroom might like it. On that count I'm right. They will. Even I did. How, how, how?

A More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2011

Wendy Darling rated it:

Really, really great. I'm putting all the other Sara Zarr books on my TBR immediately.

33 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2012

Leanne rated it:

4.5 stars

Young Adult Contemporary can be a bit tricky to get right. Especially when the central plot is formulaic and familiar, such as in How to Save a Life. This book could have easily fallen into my shelf of long- forgotten YA novels, filled with other predictable, cheesy books that I can't recall very well. Let me just say, Sara Zarr hit the right mark with How to Save a Life.

This novel is narrated by Jill MacSweeny, a teenager who lives with her widowed mother (wh More...

4 comments like (13 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2011

Jess rated it:

Sara Zarr writes the sort of books that are populated with characters who feel so real, you know you'd recognize them if you met them on the street. I couldn't put this one down - I felt desperate for the characters to get to some emotional resolution. The good news is that the ending is satisfying but not too tidy. Just enough is left to your imagination.

The viewpoint alternates between Mandy, a pregant teen, and Jill, a high school senior whose widowed mother wants to adopt Ma More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2011

Alyssa rated it:

How to Save a Life touched me in the way not many novels have. Sara Zarr, an expert in her field of YA contemporaries, crafted a unique story of family, love, independence and dependance, without alienating her readers with a story too bizarre to believe. With inspirational writing and beautiful, multidimensional characters, this novel isn't one soon to be forgotten.

The MacSweeneys lost a husband and father a year ago, and while the wife, Robin, has been doing everything she can to More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2011

Emily rated it:

My thoughts on How to Save a Life remind me a lot of the way I felt about Please Ignore Vera Dietz. In fact, there's one thing I can pretty much quote directly from the review I wrote, about how there are two subjects in young adult books that would normally make me run a mile:

a) teen pregnancy, and
b) coping with the death of a loved one

Both of them are just so overdone, annoying and melodramatic that I find it quite amazing that this novel can march onto the literary sc More...

5 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Tina rated it:

Original post at One More Page

It's a bad time for Jill MacSweeny ever since her father died. Always a daddy's girl, Jill feels lost without her dad, but now she just feels angry that her mom had decided to do the unthinkable: adopt a baby. And not just adopt a baby, but let the mother of the baby live with them until the baby is delivered. Mandy Kalinowski is the pregnant girl in question, and she's always known how it feels to be unwanted. Mandy wants a better life for her baby, and More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2011

Sarah rated it:

In a word? Real.

Through the perspectives of two teen girls, HOW TO SAVE A LIFE explores two extremely intense, emotional, and dramatic experiences — the sudden death of a parent and an unplanned teen pregnancy (and all the complications, pain, loss, fear, love, and hope that can arise from each) — in a compelling and page-turning way that never resorts to melodrama or forced emotion. On every page, through every confrontation and thought, through the internal and external changes bot More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2012

Nataly rated it:

4.5/5 stars.
This was a great realistic novel. Not only was the writing so very superb, along with an enticing synopsis, but it also had a diverse, dynamic set of characters that by the end, you felt were actually real.
This novel is about two girls from two very different lives, but both having problems that are quite difficult to overcome. Jill is in the middle of mourning the loss of her father, someone she was undeniably close to, and Mandy is pregnant, planning to give h More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 20, 2012

~Yue~ [Starless Nights Will Cover Day] rated it:

Holy freaking crap.

This book is the reason I read. It's the reason I write. Because books like these inspire me. They make me want to share this story and make people feel the way I feel about this book.

If I wasn't clear enough: I love this book.

Truly, honestly one of the best books I read this year, if not the best book.

How to Save a Life (Am I the only one who starts singing How to Save a Life by the Fray whenever I see this title?) is about two More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 01, 2011

Rowena rated it:

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I picked this book up but whatever it was, I was glad that I read this. It's a story about two girls trying to find some middle ground in their lives. One is grieving over the loss of her father and the other is trying to deal with not knowing what her future holds for her. They're both scared young girls just trying to figure out how to keep going when their lives take a drastic change.

This story head hops between the two main characters, Jill an More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2012

Kellee rated it:

Reviewed at: http://www.teachmentortexts.com/2012/01/...

Summary: Mandy has never known what it is like to be loved by a mother, so when she gets pregnant she wants to make sure that her baby is always loved and has a good life.

Jill has recently lost her father and while living in a world of grief is shocked by her mother's announcement that she is adopting a baby.

Told from both Mandy and Jill's perspective, we watch as two worlds collide and change.

What More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 15, 2011

Kathryn rated it:

Try a little tenderness...

There comes a point when everyone needs saving. When the grief and the loneliness and the struggles become to much for you to bare. But letting someone help you--love you--is almost as hard as finding your way on your own.

When Jill MacSweeney's father died, she lost her best friend, her greatest supporter and her inspiration. She's alienated her friends, kept her boyfriend at arms-length and made sure her mother knows that nothing can ever make u More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 22, 2011

Jenna rated it:

Families come in all shapes and sizes. We can't choose what family we're born into. Both Jill and Mandy, the story's alternating narrators, know this well.

Jill is pretty moody and rude to her mom. I'd expect that of a person who has lost a father who was just like her in personality. Her mom is also over fifty and about to adopt a baby without having signed any legal paperwork. Her life pretty much sucks, she thinks, but don't worry: there aren't exaggerated pity-party scenes.

More...

0 comments like

Feb 20, 2012

Karen added it

Jill and her mother are reeling from the death of Jill's father in a car accident. Jill just tries to get through her day, taking a little solace from her job at a big box bookstore and her sometimes boyfriend, Dylan. Her mother, however, cracks and decides to adopt a baby. She finds out about Mandy from an online forum, and lets her move into their house until the baby is born. The problem is that Mandy has lied about how pregnant she is and doesn't want any legal documents signed, so Jill and More...

0 comments like

Jan 22, 2012

June rated it:

I wondered in the beginning whether this book was going toward a discussion of abortion vs having a baby, and I could see a lot of controversy down the road. But, that was not the case. Mandy, a teenager, lives with her hateful mother and abusive step-father. Her only thought is to get out of her situation. She has a brief night stand with someone she really doesn't know. The result of this "one night stand" is a pregnancy. It is unfortunate for her that she is not sure who the father is - the o More...

0 comments like

Jan 16, 2012

Vivian rated it:

4.5/5
This book was very emotional, definitely a tearjerker, and I felt like it dealt with issues in a very realistic way.
I hated Jill throughout 3/4 of the book, but she began to grow on me by the end. I understood that she was grieving, but the way that she lashed out- yes, it's all part of the process, and yes, I've never experienced it myself- but it just made her very hard to like.
Mandy, I thought was literally mentally retarded, but she too became a very sympathetic chara More...

0 comments like

Jan 08, 2012

Miss rated it:

I spent twenty minutes in bed after I finished reading this wondering how I was going to review it. How to Save a Life is brilliant and I want this review to reflect that. I want people to read this and think oh my stars and days, I need to get to reading Sara Zarr immediately. This book deserves nothing less.

Jill McSweeney's father died and she's been isolating herself ever since. She's told her friends to leave her alone, she's been in a tense on again off again relationship with her More...

0 comments like

Jan 07, 2012

Anne rated it:

Sara Zarr is a stunning writer-- witty, subtle, and able to create the most interesting and believable characters. She has done it again in How to Save a Life, the story of a young pregnant girl who is taken in by a grieving widow and her daughter. She alternates POV between the the two teenage girls-- Jill and Mandy-- and brings each of them realistically to life. Their misunderstandings and disagreements are completely authentic, and you find yourself drawn in because you like the characters, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 27, 2011

Leslie rated it:

This is a story of surviving loss and moving on. Jill and her mom Robin are trying to survive the devastating loss of father and husband. Mandy is trying to survive the loss of everything she knows, even if those things and people are not good for her. All three women take an interesting journey to find what the next stage in their lives will hold.

Jill and her mom Robin are coping with the loss of Mac, father and husband, who died unexpectedly. They are well off financially but both More...

0 comments like

Dec 22, 2011

Reading rated it:

I enjoyed this book very much. In fact, I finished it in two days while visiting with my daughter and family because I wanted to know what was going to happen to these people. The story is told in an alternating style between the two main characters. Both are teenage girls, 18 and 17 years old, and bother are at major turning points in their lives. The characters are written realistically and sympathetically. Neither of them are perfect and neither of them are villains. They are young wome More...

0 comments like

Dec 05, 2011

Liza added it

Oh Sara - thank you for such a beautiful novel! HOW TO SAVE A LIFE is written in a way that the reader will feel connected to these characters as their stories pour off the pages. Told in alternating voice, Jill MacSweeney is facing the prospect of dealing with becoming an older sister when her mom decides she has to adopt a baby after her husband of 25 years dies in a tragic accident. Mandy Kalinowski is the eighteen-year-old girl who is going to make that possible through an open adoption. Whe More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 03, 2011

Jessica rated it:

Mandy is 8 months pregnant. She turns to Robin, a widow, to adopt her child. Robin has a teen daughter, Jill as well. Jill is still dealing with the death of her father and resents her mom for wanting to adopt, even though it was her father's wish.

Jill is downright mean and vicious! She is rude and yes, she is dealing with the death of her father but she is dealing with it horribly! She is simply spoiled and bitter. I did not like Jill when I started the book. At all! More...

0 comments like

Nov 16, 2011

Amanda rated it:

See My Full Review Here: http://www.hippiesbeautyandbooksohmy.com...

First Impressions: From time to time, I like to take on a book that has a heart-wrenching story line like this one. It reminds me that every day shouldn’t be taken for granted. It is also nice to read a story that doesn’t involve the paranormal and stays true to real life. I really liked the premise of this book. It reminded me a bit like Juno, which I absolutely fell in love with. I was excited to read a book by this More...

0 comments like