Safe With Me
Pages: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: March 4, 2014
Hannah Scott is living the worst possible nightmare ever imagined. Her twelve year old daughter, Emily, was hit by a car and now the doctors tell her she must make a decision. Will she donate Emily's organs or not? Emily's rare blood type makes her organs especially valuable to fifteen year old Maddie Bell. She has been sick so long with Hepatitis that she doesn't remember what it was like to be healthy and Emily's liver will give her her life back. Maddie has been cooped up in hospital rooms for so long her only friends are those she makes online.
Olivia Bell is Maddie's mom and her entire world revolves around her daughter and her daughter's health, but she knows if things were different she and Maddie would be long gone. Even though her powerful husband puts on a good show he is a dangerous man and the only thing keeping Olivia there is Maddie and her health. A year after the transplant Maddie is healthy and ready to start becoming a normal teenager and Olivia is ready to start formulating her escape plan, she just needs to hang in there two more years until Maddie is eighteen and then they both will be free. Until they can be free, Olivia decides to make the most of life and help Maddie navigate the murky waters of high school by taking her for a cut and color. The salon they happen to walk into belongs to the still grieving Hannah. What will it mean for all three women to have their paths cross at this time in their lives?
Safe With Me is one of those books that I absolutely devoured. I stopped reading long enough to eat and then I was back with my nose buried in the pages. This is one of those stories told in alternating voices, Hannah, Olivia, and Maddie all share the responsibility of telling their stories and each voice has a unique perspective to their shared story. As can be expected,Hannah is so tore up by her grief that it is all she can do to put one foot in front of another. Hannah is just so relieved that her daughter is alive that she pushes aside the fact that her husband abuses her. And Maddie is so wrapped up in her own world (like teenagers are known to do) that she ignores the fact that her father hits her mother. And that she is lying to strange men on the internet. And that her new "friends" are anything but friends. I think her perspective interested me the most. Here Maddie has a new lease on life, literally, and it almost makes her fearless. Or maybe that is just the teenager in her. But, I loved how well the author developed these three women. The character development in all three of them are astounding and seems so natural that I forgot it was fiction.
Bottom line,
Safe With Me is one of those books that will suck you in and not let you go until long after you finish the book. There is so much emotion packed into this book that it would be a wonderful choice for your next book club selection.
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