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hazyblazy's review against another edition
3.0
That ending was so bad... Just out of nowhere BS. All of a sudden justinion went fuckin psycho and decides he wants patrick dead and seem to go against everything they believed in pertaining to CHOICES yet forces verna and layla to make that dumbass choice? and meanwhile the bitches that publically humiliate verna everyday of her life don't get a gun to them? Makes no sense. Just no. And we get no follow up of the bomb impact on the victims at the school. Ugh.
librarypatron's review against another edition
3.0
I don't recommend this book to anyone due to its morbid, dark, and explicit nature. I do have to say that the writing is incredible though. The characters were vibrant, and I was entranced all three days it took me to read it.
mkokopelli's review against another edition
3.0
Kind of felt like she gave up at the end of the novel. I really enjoyed most of the novel, but was very let down with the ending.
christajls's review against another edition
3.0
This review originally posted at More Than Just Magic
Save Yourself is the incredibly dramatic story of four lost, lonely individuals – Layla, Verna, Patrick and Caro.
Layla the seventeen year old, jaded, goth daughter of the town’s minister, has rebelled against her parent’s beliefs and settled herself in with a new crowd. But something is not quite right and she begins to persue Patrick, a twenty six year who works the night shift at the gas station. Her sister Verna, has just started ninth grade after being homeschooled for most of her life. She quickly finds that her family’s reputation (as the family that got sex-ed removed from the school) proceeds them – and it is not a popular one. Vulnerable and alone she begins to take up with her sisters friends and finds her beliefs and identity constantly coming into question.
On the other side of the coin we have Patrick. Years earlier his alcholic father hit a child with his car and drove off. Patrick and his brother Mike, sat with him over night until eventually the guilt was too much and Patrick called the police. Now their father is in jail and Patrick lives a paycheque to paycheque lifestyle with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend Caro. Oh but there’s one more hitch. He’s actually in love with Caro…and it looks like she may sort of feel the same way.
Got all that straight? There’s a lot going on in this book and it’s really not that long. At times it could be a little hard to follow, especially when time overlaps, but overall Kelly Braffet did an excellent job weaving it all together.
I enjoyed Layla’s spunk even though she sometimes annoyed me. But at the end of the day I felt nothing but pity for her and I thought there should have been more. And I found Caro’s story was not very well fleshed out. I still have so many questions about her and the sub-plot about her mother which was abandoned at some point.
Of them all I found Verna and Patrick to be the most interesting and compelling characters. Verna was struggling with a lot of issues many of us are familiar with. The internal battle between who you are at home and who you are out in the world, questioning the religious beliefs she had been raised with and last but definitey not least, bullying – particularly cyberbullying. Verna really has a hard time in Save Yourself and there are so many people ready to take advantage of her vulnerability. Your heart really goes out to her.
With Patrick I could have cared less about his love life – both with Layla and Caro. What really interested me was the famly dynamic. Both the father-son angle and the brother-brother angle. Patrick made the very difficult decision to call the cops, knowing that his father would go to jail, whereas his brother Mike thought they could just pretend it never happened. It raised questions of responsibility – where does it lie? To your family? To the community? To justice? And when does one kind of responsibility supercede another? Also the idea of guilt. Patrick did the right thing, but there were still consequences for his actions. I think when it comes to Patrick’s storyline there’s a lot of great things to discuss.
As you may have guessed by now this is a very character driven novel. The action itself can get a little disturbing at time, but it kind of fades to the background as you wait to see how it will change the people involved. At times this book may anger you or disgust you but at other times it will break your heart. It’s a complicated book full of complicated people.
Recommendation: Great for those who enjoy character driven novels or those who like to explore the family dynamic. Trigger warnings for bullying, sexual assault and cutting.
Save Yourself is the incredibly dramatic story of four lost, lonely individuals – Layla, Verna, Patrick and Caro.
Layla the seventeen year old, jaded, goth daughter of the town’s minister, has rebelled against her parent’s beliefs and settled herself in with a new crowd. But something is not quite right and she begins to persue Patrick, a twenty six year who works the night shift at the gas station. Her sister Verna, has just started ninth grade after being homeschooled for most of her life. She quickly finds that her family’s reputation (as the family that got sex-ed removed from the school) proceeds them – and it is not a popular one. Vulnerable and alone she begins to take up with her sisters friends and finds her beliefs and identity constantly coming into question.
On the other side of the coin we have Patrick. Years earlier his alcholic father hit a child with his car and drove off. Patrick and his brother Mike, sat with him over night until eventually the guilt was too much and Patrick called the police. Now their father is in jail and Patrick lives a paycheque to paycheque lifestyle with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend Caro. Oh but there’s one more hitch. He’s actually in love with Caro…and it looks like she may sort of feel the same way.
Got all that straight? There’s a lot going on in this book and it’s really not that long. At times it could be a little hard to follow, especially when time overlaps, but overall Kelly Braffet did an excellent job weaving it all together.
I enjoyed Layla’s spunk even though she sometimes annoyed me. But at the end of the day I felt nothing but pity for her and I thought there should have been more. And I found Caro’s story was not very well fleshed out. I still have so many questions about her and the sub-plot about her mother which was abandoned at some point.
Of them all I found Verna and Patrick to be the most interesting and compelling characters. Verna was struggling with a lot of issues many of us are familiar with. The internal battle between who you are at home and who you are out in the world, questioning the religious beliefs she had been raised with and last but definitey not least, bullying – particularly cyberbullying. Verna really has a hard time in Save Yourself and there are so many people ready to take advantage of her vulnerability. Your heart really goes out to her.
With Patrick I could have cared less about his love life – both with Layla and Caro. What really interested me was the famly dynamic. Both the father-son angle and the brother-brother angle. Patrick made the very difficult decision to call the cops, knowing that his father would go to jail, whereas his brother Mike thought they could just pretend it never happened. It raised questions of responsibility – where does it lie? To your family? To the community? To justice? And when does one kind of responsibility supercede another? Also the idea of guilt. Patrick did the right thing, but there were still consequences for his actions. I think when it comes to Patrick’s storyline there’s a lot of great things to discuss.
As you may have guessed by now this is a very character driven novel. The action itself can get a little disturbing at time, but it kind of fades to the background as you wait to see how it will change the people involved. At times this book may anger you or disgust you but at other times it will break your heart. It’s a complicated book full of complicated people.
Recommendation: Great for those who enjoy character driven novels or those who like to explore the family dynamic. Trigger warnings for bullying, sexual assault and cutting.
hollyj13's review against another edition
1.0
Although it's only been a few days, it seems like it took me a lifetime to finish this book. Let's start with the positives. This book was very well written. The worst part of this book is the fact that it's labeled as a thriller. There is not one thrilling thing about this. In fact, there is little to no action in this book until the second to last chapter. You need to make your way through over two thirds for anything to happen. The rest of the book is made up of exposition. Introducing and going through the really crummy lives of some really crummy people. There is no one to root for here. Almost all of the characters are awful and none of them redeem themselves in the end. That plus the lack of plot left a lot to be desired with this one.
emjay24's review
3.0
I read this book because everyone kept saying it is like a Gillian Flynn book. I sort of see that, in that it's very dark. There is no mystery to it, and so it also reminds me of a Jodi Picoult book - lots of people thinking and thinking about their lives. This book is about a man around 30, whose dad is in jail for drunkenly killing a child in a hit and run. He and his brother, whom he lives with, didn't call it in for 19 hours and so now the community, and he, feel like he's a criminal too. We also see the story of a once very Christian teen who, after being teased and bullied at school, is now quite the opposite, and her sister who is following along the same path. I read most of this on a plane, so it went quite quickly. I do enjoy dark, moody books, if you're looking for something feel-good and redeeming, don't look here. I would read more of this author!
weweresotired's review against another edition
4.0
See more reviews on The Best Books Ever!
This is a tough book to review, because I thought it was incredibly good, but so many of the characters are frustrating or downright reprehensible. It's not a feel-good sort of book and there are lots of plot points that are honestly really uncomfortable to read about. But it is a book that just sucks you in and gets you hooked while you wait for the full train wreck to unfold.
Save Yourself takes place in a fictional western Pennsylvania town, probably not too different from the area where I grew up. I don't know if the author has ever spent any time out there, but she definitely captured the spirit and feel of a run-down working class town. Everything in the story felt very familiar to me in a personal way. The house you spend your whole life in. The dingy bars and convenience stores where everyone gathers. The small-town mentality, the cliques, the aimlessness. How hard it can be to escape. I knew people like Layla, who acted out in the worst ways, who were raised by parents who thought they were doing the right thing but who were really, profoundly screwing up their kids. The whole time I was reading, I felt like if my life were only a little different, if I were only a little less fortunate or privileged or blessed, however you want to see it, that I could have easily been Layla or Verna or Patrick.
These are all horrifically damaged people. In a way, it's partially a book showing the aftermath of parenting gone bad. Patrick and his brother Mike are essentially adult orphans, with their mother dead and their father in jail. Patrick and his brother Mike didn't have great lives to begin with, but now they're vilified by the town by association. Mike ignores it and slowly begins to spiral down to follow the same path their father did, while Patrick lets it consume him. Caro, Mike's girlfriend, has spent her whole life running from her past, trying to outrun what she thinks is an inevitable future of mental illness, care of her mother and genetics, by bouncing from one bad-news guy to the next. Layla and Verna are raised in a conservative, fundamentalist home and are trapped in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" nightmare. Layla rebels and puts on a tough, goth-y exterior to hide how hurt and confused and in need of love/approval she is. Verna experiences horrific bullying at school and suffers in silence, turning to Layla and her friends to try to find a place to fit in, with disastrous results.
At one point, I think Caro makes the observation that she often wants to shake people, tell them to wake up and see what's going on around them, and that's really how I felt about every last person in this story. Caro tries to do this for Patrick and Mike but it never quite gets through to them. I wanted to take Verna away, protect her from the terrible bullying she endures. I wanted to tell Layla that she doesn't need to do what she does to get people to love her, that she is beautiful and has worth and is being so, so used. Bad decisions just snowball into one another, taking you along for a very tense ride until the very end. This isn't an uplifting story by any means, but a harsh look at what people can do when pushed against each other, when they're set up to fail, when they feel desperate and guilty and unloved. The author makes all of the characters seem very realistic, even when realistic means dirty and miserable and unhinged.
Themes include school bullying, mental illness, physical and emotional abuse, underage sex, coercion/manipulation, alcoholism, drunk driving, and cutting/self harm, so the book is recommended for more mature readers. Despite the dark, heavy material, I would definitely recommend this book! It kept me engaged from start to finish, wanting to know what happens next.
This is a tough book to review, because I thought it was incredibly good, but so many of the characters are frustrating or downright reprehensible. It's not a feel-good sort of book and there are lots of plot points that are honestly really uncomfortable to read about. But it is a book that just sucks you in and gets you hooked while you wait for the full train wreck to unfold.
Save Yourself takes place in a fictional western Pennsylvania town, probably not too different from the area where I grew up. I don't know if the author has ever spent any time out there, but she definitely captured the spirit and feel of a run-down working class town. Everything in the story felt very familiar to me in a personal way. The house you spend your whole life in. The dingy bars and convenience stores where everyone gathers. The small-town mentality, the cliques, the aimlessness. How hard it can be to escape. I knew people like Layla, who acted out in the worst ways, who were raised by parents who thought they were doing the right thing but who were really, profoundly screwing up their kids. The whole time I was reading, I felt like if my life were only a little different, if I were only a little less fortunate or privileged or blessed, however you want to see it, that I could have easily been Layla or Verna or Patrick.
These are all horrifically damaged people. In a way, it's partially a book showing the aftermath of parenting gone bad. Patrick and his brother Mike are essentially adult orphans, with their mother dead and their father in jail. Patrick and his brother Mike didn't have great lives to begin with, but now they're vilified by the town by association. Mike ignores it and slowly begins to spiral down to follow the same path their father did, while Patrick lets it consume him. Caro, Mike's girlfriend, has spent her whole life running from her past, trying to outrun what she thinks is an inevitable future of mental illness, care of her mother and genetics, by bouncing from one bad-news guy to the next. Layla and Verna are raised in a conservative, fundamentalist home and are trapped in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" nightmare. Layla rebels and puts on a tough, goth-y exterior to hide how hurt and confused and in need of love/approval she is. Verna experiences horrific bullying at school and suffers in silence, turning to Layla and her friends to try to find a place to fit in, with disastrous results.
At one point, I think Caro makes the observation that she often wants to shake people, tell them to wake up and see what's going on around them, and that's really how I felt about every last person in this story. Caro tries to do this for Patrick and Mike but it never quite gets through to them. I wanted to take Verna away, protect her from the terrible bullying she endures. I wanted to tell Layla that she doesn't need to do what she does to get people to love her, that she is beautiful and has worth and is being so, so used. Bad decisions just snowball into one another, taking you along for a very tense ride until the very end. This isn't an uplifting story by any means, but a harsh look at what people can do when pushed against each other, when they're set up to fail, when they feel desperate and guilty and unloved. The author makes all of the characters seem very realistic, even when realistic means dirty and miserable and unhinged.
Themes include school bullying, mental illness, physical and emotional abuse, underage sex, coercion/manipulation, alcoholism, drunk driving, and cutting/self harm, so the book is recommended for more mature readers. Despite the dark, heavy material, I would definitely recommend this book! It kept me engaged from start to finish, wanting to know what happens next.
holly_117's review against another edition
4.0
Really good, complex characters drive this book and make it a very fast read. The only thing I didn't like was the ending. It felt rushed and
Spoiler
I didn't like the whole "goth kids blow up the school and go on a killing spree" ending. It's cliche and I hate that it perpetuates the stereotypes that goth kids are all bullied losers that will snap and become ultra-violent.zdkb24's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0