Sara Zarr is known for writing heart-wrenching contemporary novels and How to Save a Life does not disappoint. As a big fan of The Fray and their hit song, How to Save a Life, I was first drawn to the novel through the title and knew immediately that this was a novel to get my hands on. 
 For me, the subject matter was something different and Zarr tackled it expertly. Told in alternative perspective, both Jill and Mandy get to tell their side of the story. Jill is still grieving for her father and she can't quite understand her mother's decision to adopt Mandy's baby. She also has a complicated relationship with her on-off boyfriend. Mandy's a teenage mother and through her narrative, readers will quickly see that her own upbringing wasn't the best and that she possibly suffered quite a bit as a child as well. 
 The emotions both girls go through were written with such deft skill that it was quite hard to imagine that this was just a novel. (view spoiler)[I particularly liked that Mandy herself had apprehensions in giving away her baby, going so far as to run away. In real life, many surrogate mothers or mothers who first agree to an adoption decide to keep their babies instead and I'm glad that Zarr didn't shy away from that. (hide spoiler)] 
 How to Save a Life is another wonderful offering by Sara Zarr and I guarantee that fans of writers such as Sarah Dessen, Gayle Forman will not be disappointed.