BOOK REVIEW: Save Me

SAVE ME is the third book I've read by Lisa Scottoline. My first was a collection of her humorous newspaper articles and the second was a light mystery. Neither prepared me for SAVE ME.

Rose McKenna has moved her family to a new town to get her daughter Melly away from being bullied. Things are no different at the new school. Rose has become a cafeteria volunteer in order to keep an eye on her daughter. 

 

One day Rose watches the girls tease Melly to the point that Melly runs to the restroom in tears and as Rose is reprimanding the girls at the table, the kitchen explodes. Rose must make a choice that no mother should have to make: the choice of saving the three girls that she is talking to or leave them and rush to get her own daughter. Her split second choice changes everything in her life. Her marriage starts to fall apart, the community goes from seeing her as a hero to treating as the most hated of villains, and soon her own life is in danger.

This book had a little more meat to it than the earlier ones I had read by the author. The plot is one that would scare any mother. Do you save your child or another woman’s child? Then, add the human element of having watched that other child mistreating your daughter.

The story line was a good one, but I had trouble with the details. Scottoline does not write strong male characters and in order for Rose to become strong and resourceful, the husband had to be out of the picture. It may have been possible that his career was more important than the lives of his family, but it did not make him a very likable guy. I almost rooted for the marriage to break up.

The action scenes were fast and I did cheer for Rose as the bad guys chased her. I knew all would be fine in the end, but that brought up another point of dissatisfaction; all was too tidy in the end. I do not like forced happy endings and this felt forced to me. 

 

I know that Lisa Scottoline is a very popular author, but I couldn’t help wondering what Jodie Picoult or Sharon Sala would have done with this story line.