Find Life's Truth in "Secret For A Song"

Secret for a SongSaylor Grayson makes herself sick. Literally.

She ate her first needle when she was seven. Now, at nineteen, she’s been kicked out of college for poisoning herself with laxatives. The shrinks call it Munchausen Syndrome. All Saylor knows is that when she’s ill, her normally distant mother pays attention and the doctors and nurses make her feel special.

Then she meets Drew Dean, the leader of a local support group for those with terminal diseases. When he mistakes her for a new member, Saylor knows she should correct him. But she can’t bring herself to, not after she’s welcomed into a new circle of friends. Friends who, like Drew, all have illnesses ready to claim their independence or their lives.

For the first time, Saylor finds out what it feels like to be in love, to have friends who genuinely care about her. But secrets have a way of revealing themselves. What will happen when Saylor’s is out?
  -Goodreads
 
My Thought
This book was about so much more than could effectively be communicated in it's synopsis.  Saylor
 is a young woman who has literally marooned herself on the island of her disease.  As such it has become her EVERYTHING.  In Saylor, readers find a girl whose emotional and social development has been stunted by her illness.  She has no outside interests or friends, and her relationship with her parents is one mired in animosity, mistrust, and lies.

Until she meets Drew, Zee, Peirce, Jack, and others.  Though she meets them under false pretenses; she truly begins to care for them all.  She also begins to see that there is more to life than Munchausen Syndrome, and it's cycle of alienation, hospitals, guilt, and treatment.

This is a book that, while very emotionally charged, and at times difficult to read; is quite worth it.  It sheds a very revealing light on the enigma that is Munchausen Sydrome.  The sharp contrast between the honesty with which her friends, who are dealing with terminal illnesses and Saylor; allows readers to see just how deep her illness runs. 
The further we delve into Saylor's existence, the more apparent it becomes that Saylor's sickness is but a symptom of larger and more pervasive family issues.

This book uses the specter of illness to communicate the truths of love, honesty, and the importance of not taking life for granted.
This beautiful book is one that this reviewer takes great pride in recommending as a must read.
 







 

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