Blog Tour: Secret for A Song by S.K. Falls

Tour Hosted by Xpresso Tours: Schedule

Title:  Secret for A Song

Author: S.K. FallsPublishing Date:  June 3rd, 2013

Pages: 155
Genre:  NA Coming of Age 

Series: Stand Alone
Source: Kindle Edition provided by Xpresso Tours

  

        

Saylor 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?

This was a different kind of realistic fiction than i normally read. A bit more intense with the issues. I was very excited to be a part of this tour and really happy to have read this book. It's a very tough book with some pretty hard moments, but it was really good. Many tearful moments, many thoughtful moments, and many shaking my head moments. 

Saylor has Munchausen Syndrome. She makes herself sick for the attention, for the way it makes her feel, because it's an addiction. She started by swallowing a needle and has gone into so many more serious things. She loves to make herself sick enough to go to the doctor, or better yet the hospital. It's tricky though, she has to do it in a way that will not get herself discovered. They can't know she did it to herself. She has been caught before, her mother never believes she has had nothing to do with any of the sicknesses, (and she is right to think this) and she has taken her to many different therapists. Her father seems to just travel and ignore it. Saylor's newest therapist leads her to help at the hospital with the support groups, she falls into one for Terminally ill young patients under the impression to all there that she has MS. This leads her to become friends with Drew.  Saylor finally finds someone who really cares about her but it's still under the influence of a lie. 

I thought this book was great. It was hard to get through some of the moments, and tough to deal with the main character, but the issue involved is not one often touched. The book was wonderfully written and I felt vulnerable reading Saylor's story. 

I have never known anyone with this mental illness but I know it exists. I can't imagine having it or worse, living with someone who has it. The constant fear of the day they go to far and cause their own death. The story of Saylor was able to get into my mind and help me further understand this mental illness. Saylor was serious about making herself sick, she wanted to be loved. This was the wrong way to go about things but I could understand her feelings of being unloved. This book is one of those books that really wanted me to slap some parents. Her parents were horrible. They gave up on her in a way. Her mother still took her to therapy, but wouldn't join in, wouldn't ask about it, and just didn't seem to care. I could tell that she did all she could just to deal with Saylor enough to get her out of her hair. Saylors father didn't even try to pretend. .He just made himself unavailable... but at least he asked how her therapy was going. I can't pretend to understand what it is like to live with a daughter with this mental illness, but maybe things would be better if they at least put some real effort into helping her daughter heal. 

OK so that was my rant about the book.... I didn't like her parents at all... Saylor was a difficult character for me too, but not is a horrible way. I just didn't like watching herself and being in her head as she went through this. She was self centered, she was whiny, she was very immature, but it didn't bother me like it normally does. She had reasons. She does grow, and that is what makes her character wonderful.. the journey. 

I really loved Drew. He was very sweet and his story was really sad. He has a degenerative disorder and watching him get worse was very hard. He tried to stay positive but it was very hard at times when he couldn't do the simple things in life like place a CD in the CD player. 

The book touches on some very difficult issues, assisted suicide, death, sickness... it really is a hard book to get through but worth it. 

A very good book, definitely for the more mature crowd with the issues involved. Get a tissue... that's all I have to say.

Adriana Ryan is the pen name of writer S.K. Falls.

A huge fan of spooky stuff and shoes, I enjoy alternately hitting up the outlet malls and historic graveyards in Charleston, SC where I live and imbibe coffee. My husband and two small children seem not to mind when I hastily scribble novel lines on stray limbs in the absence of notepads.

Since no writer’s biography is complete without mention of her menagerie of animals, you should know I have one dog that doubles as a footstool, a second that functions as a vacuum cleaner, anda cat that ensures I never forget that my hands are, first and foremost, for pouring cat food.

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