Jill is not happy. She is waiting for a train to come, that will change her life completely. She is not happy with her mother's decision to adopt a child, especially with no legal arrangement or anything in writing. Just an agreement that will change their lives forever.
Mandy is on the train, sure that she is doing the right thing. Riding on the train to Colorado to meet a woman who she met on-line, who will raise her baby. She's 19, and has runaway from her mother and her mother's boyfriend. She doesn't want anything to go wrong. So much depends on that, and where she will go after the baby is born.
Two girls from two very different worlds are forced together when Jill's mother decides to adopt a baby after the death of Jill's father. Jill has lived a life of privilege, never really wanting for anything however with the sudden death of her father has fallen into a pattern where she pushes everyone away from her. Mandy has never had much, living with her mother and what ever guy she was seeing. She learned from an early age not to strive for too much, except for finding a guy and settle down .
Tied together by the upcoming birth of the baby, there is a lot they have to face. Sara Zarr takes a lot of tricky subjects and weaves them together skillfully to create a believable story based on unusual events. Both girls have to deal with their past. Jill shut out a lot of people after the death of her father, and will have to work to rebuild old friendships, and let her guard down to make new friends. Mandy has never really had a life of her own, and lives to please others. Living with Jill and her mom shows her a life she never knew was possible.
How to Save a Life will appeal to fans of Sara Zarr's other books, as well as authors like Sarah Dessen and Laurie Halse Anderson.
I'll see you @ the library!
Katie (Now reading A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness)