How to Save a Life
By Sara Zarr

How to Save a Life is a story of two very different girls and how their lives come crashing together.

Jill MacSweeny is still struggling with the death of her father and has pulled away from everyone in her life, including her boyfriend and her best friends.  Her mom decides that she wants to adopt a baby and to Jill that seems like a sad attempt at replacing her father.

The baby is where Mandy Kalinowski comes into the story.  She’s a pregnant teen who’s had a rough life and really isn’t sure if she’d be able to give her baby a better life than the one she’s had.  She connects with Jill’s mom on an adoption website and agrees to give her the baby on her own terms, no contract and she will live with the MacSweeny’s for the final weeks of her pregnancy.  Mrs. MacSweeny quickly agrees but Jill is suspicious of Mandy and her motives.

Both Jill and Mandy have a lot to figure out about who they are and what they want out of life and realize that it might not be what they originally planned.  This is a wonderful story about family and love and finding your place in the world…and more than one life is saved by the end of it.