Save Me ~ Lisa Scottoline (audio) review

Save Me
St Martin's Griffin
February 14, 2012
416 pages
10:57:36 (WMA audio version)
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depo/or Amazon

Rose is one of the volunteer lunch moms at her daughter Melinda's school on the day it happens. Lunch moms are there to help during lunch time, keep an eye on the kids, but Rose is there to keep an eye on Amanda, the girl who's been teasing Melly for the birthmark on her face. They've already moved once for the bullying Melly's endured and Rose wants to put a stop to it this time.

Rose has been talking to Amanda - after Melly's fled the lunch room following a particular incident - when the school kitchen explodes.

Now, she's faced with a gut wrenching decision, does she go to the bathroom where Melly's is and save her daughter or save the girls she's with right now, the ones bullying her daughter . . . and leave her daughter?


She only has a split-second to make her decision but Rose thinks she's managed to save all of the girls. That's why she's gobsmacked to find out one of the other girls does have injuries - life threatening ones. The girl's family and soon the whole town blame Rose, claiming she chose to save only her own daughter.

With the threat of legal action hanging over her head and now a pariah in her own town, it's up to Rose to find out the truth behind the fire and the explosion, and to clear her name.


Save Me is the third Lisa Scottoline book I've read - well, listened to - following Look Twice and Come Home. While all three have very different plots, they are each about mothers whose children are somehow threatened - at least to start - and they then see just how far they'll really go to save everything. To save their families.

With Save Me I knew, approximately what I was going to get, in terms of the plot - the strong emotion, a mother very devoted to her children, a father who would likely give a lot of push-back, an ending that would not drop a lot of hints that made sense until the ending was revealed (and possibly even then). That's what I wanted, though. There are times that I love to go into books knowing absolutely nothing about what I'm going to get and then, sometimes, I like books where I kind of already know what I'm getting.

I do enjoy that the though the broad strokes of Scottoline's Chick Lit books (vs her legal thriller, Rosato & Associates series which I have yet to read) are so similar, the characters and the story lines make them quite different. (I enjoyed Look Twice more than Come Home but may have enjoyed this one more than either of them.)

All of her Chick Lit books are hailed for their strong female characters and while I can't quite put my finger on why - they do fight hard for their children, they're not meek - I wouldn't think of them if asked for strong female characters. I don't know if they don't seem well developed enough or if it's my own bias and the more melodramatic books and thus characters lead me seeing them otherwise.

Save Me isn't an epic work of literature, no, but it's a good read with good characters. Rose is put in a tough situation - one where it's easy to see her side of things and the side of the other family (if not always the entire town). Scottoline does a great job of revealing enough information as the story goes, about either side so that while Rose stays the protagonist, it's never a one sided story.

The audio version of Save Me is recorded by Cynthia Nixon (from "Sex & the City") who does a graet job and its easy to 'see' her as Rose, the almost 11 hour audio book is very enjoyable. With 89 chapters, there are a lot of breaks, too, so it's easy to keep your place.


Rating: 7/10


Other Books You Might Enjoy: those by Jodi Picoult and those by Diane Chamberlain


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