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.