Review: Music saves
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 17, 2013
In my opinion, Barbara has written an excellent book here, one where the reader can easily connect to, fell for, and relate with the characters. I love a story that hits on so many different emotions, and this story does just that. This story brings many real life themes and tragedy to the front lines.This story finds a budding musician, Neil, struggling to deal with everyday existence after rebuilding her life the best she could following some horrible events which include being threatened to keep some appalling family secrets. Neil was forced to grow up way to fast after her dad's death in my opinion. Sadly, she's much older than her years in life experiences. Neil doesn't communicate much with her words, though she speaks an abundance through her music.Along comes Truly, who understands that getting to know and understand Neil wont be an easy feat. Luckily, he is able to learn a lot about her through her music. Truly learns about Neil's frightening past, including the threats that could very soon become reality, and is dedicated to stay and help her.I love the fact that even though you learn about the physical and sexual abuse from Neil's past, the author doesn't feel the need to get overly graphic on these subjects, but instead chooses to let the reader imagine how bad the situation must have been. This was a very refreshing thing for me these days, as so many authors feel the need to get overly graphic, and often forget like in this case, that they are writing a novel geared toward young adults.This book doesn't have your typical happy ending, which I loved, but instead offers you a powerful, realistic, and believable ending. Because even though everyone likes a happy ending, we all know that in reality, not every story actually has a happy ending.One more thing, this story kind of leaves you hanging in the end...but the good thing is, this book is part of a series and once you've finished the first one, you can run right out and purchase the next one.