Saylor is a sick girl. Well she's sick in that she wants to be sick. Dreams about it, researches it, yearns for it. She's willing to do whatever it takes to get at the attention that comes with hospitalization. She's been pulled out of college after being caught "faking it", and now she's back to seeing a shrink. But this shrink actually allows her to volunteer at a hospital, the one place she loves but is usually banned from. She just knows if she can spend time in a hospital she'll figure out a way to become sick again. She's supposed to be helping out with a terminally-ill support group... but when the leader of the group, Drew, mistakes her for a patient, she goes along with it. Eventually she finds something she's never had before: friendship and love. But now she's in over her head with lies and could lose it all in an instant.


I went in to this book a little worried just because I haven't loved most of the NA that I've been reading lately. This was finally one that was NORMAL... and good. It wasn't all sex, sex, sex... abs, abs, abs.... lust, lust, lust. It was just about a girl who was college age. A truly messed up girl, but not a nympho.

For real: This book hooked me from page one. I mean it has a 7-year-old swallowing a needle for crying out loud! Tell me that's not going to make you curious. I also just loved the idea for a book about Munchausen Syndrome. It seems like when that topic is brought up in books and on TV, it's usually the by proxy kind which features the parent hurting the child for attention... not the child actually hurting herself. It was really interesting (and kinda disturbing) to read Saylor's thoughts about hurting herself. She was a fucked up, attention deprived little girl.

I really liked how all the lies building up created this tension that had me sweating it out for Saylor. She just kept telling them and telling them, feeling bad, and then feeling really good at the love she was getting back from all these amazing people.

So you have the tension building because you know she's going to be outed somehow and everything is going to crumble. But then you also have this other tension because these people are terminal and you just don't want anything to happen to them. At least that's how I felt.

I do want to give a warning though: if you have someone close to you that has had a serious illness, you might want to think about your feelings before you read this book. Some of the things Saylor did had me cringing like crazy. I don't think she was trying to make the people in the support group feel like she was mocking their disease (as in that wasn't her intention), but that is pretty much exactly what she was doing by pretending to be ill. I just think if you have watched someone go through cancer or something like that, you might be offended by some of Saylor's thoughts and actions and you wouldn't be able to see the book for what it really is.

The one thing I hated was there is a scene where Saylor is texting while driving... and yeah there are worse things she could've done, and I'm not saying I've NEVER done it, but I don't like seeing it in print. It's super dangerous and should be taken seriously because too many people have died.

The ending was not perfect, but overall it could have been way worse... and in a way I sort like it when everything isn't all happy, pretty, sunshine, rainbows, ya know?

Overall: Such a well written book on a refreshing topic. It features a truly mentally ill main character who makes herself sick... and then she lies so much it kind of makes you sick. This is a NA book that is actually worth reading (it's not porn, hurrah!!). It's an emotional, tense, cool book that I would definitely recommend!

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Read my full review of the book at seriesousbookreviews.com! Spoiler Free!

SK Falls does an amazing job writing from Saylor's POV. So much so that it is actually hard to read it at times because it feels so real. You understand why she thinks the way she does and how ill she truly is. It was especially hard for me to read because I am entering the healthcare field and reading Saylor's story showed me how our current system is failing people with similar mental conditions.

I was expecting a bit more of a romance to be honest BUT, I'm glad the focus was on Saylor's story and her character growth. It made for a much more interesting story and made this book very unique to the other stories in this genre. What romance is there compliments the plot beautifully.

Check out more spoiler-free book and series reviews on my blog SERIESousBookReviews.com as well as read book series recaps!

Full Review: http://wp.me/p3txrs-UB
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The ending was too rushed and too neat for me. I really disliked Saylor for the first three quarters of the book; her redemption was too little too late for me, maybe if the ending hadn't of been so quickly summarized I could've liked this book a little. 2 stars(instead of one) because of Drew. ( )

Such a unique premise, I have never read a book about Munchhausen's and didn't know much about it, so it was awesome to get into her head and experience a new perspective and learn about a mental illness.
I liked the friends she met from the support group, and even though I knew that things would collapse around her because of her lies and carefully constructed house of cards. I did want more of how she made herself sick and the emotions behind it but it was a good thing to get the emotions from those who are sick not by choice. I think that being around that amount of sickness and impending death really led to her healing more than anything else. It began as jealousy that they were really sick but then it morphed into something else entirely.
I understood little by little why she did what she did, and it was hard relating with that type of personality because I don't have any of that life experience, but I could empathize. Because I know pain, fear of abandonment, wanting to fit in, I just don't process the same way.
There is romance in this one, and it was sweet for the most part. It was just hard because like the friendships above, it is built on lies, and you know it can't end sweetly.
I felt like the ending was rushed a bit, and I wanted there to be a little more something. I liked the overall ending message and the note that it left on of hope and change though.

Bottom Line: Dark and gritty adventure into the mind of a girl who hurts herself for attention. ( )

Review originally posted on my blog at Book.Blog.Bake.

Secret for a Song is not a light read, but it was a fascinating look inside the mind of someone with Munchhausen’s syndrome. As the summary suggests, Saylor does everything she can to make her self sick for attention, sometimes going to great lengths to do so. It’s hard to understand why Saylor would do the things she does, but I think Secret for a Song does a good job of really getting inside Saylor’s head and her thoughts as much as possible. The entire read, I was torn between feeling so sympathetic for Saylor and being so disappointed in her actions, but I thought S.K. Falls was skilled enough to create a character who isn’t very likable on the surface, but has a lot of hidden depths and is in an interesting situation.

I suppose Secret for a Song is really a New Adult title, since Saylor’s college-aged, and the book definitely deals with certain things a little more graphically than a YA book might. I really appreciated this AS a New Adult title, because it definitely doesn’t fit in the stereotypical New Adult mold that many people complain about. Saylor’s issue is not glamorized and sometimes it’s hard to read about, but it’s depicted fairly and as much as I can tell, accurately.

The romance in this book is pretty interesting. On one hand, you have Drew, the boy with the terminal illness whose disease is slowly taking away his ability to walk, use his muscles correctly, and have the quality of life most people in their early twenties do. On the other hand is Saylor, who is also sick, but whose illness is a mental one and who desires the attention the physically sick get. This isn’t a romantic portrayal that I as a reader root for, necessarily, but I think it showed a lot about both Drew and Saylor.

At it’s core, this is a really character-driven book, which made it a bit hard to read at times. After all, I don’t really LIKE Saylor, but I’m interested in her situation. There’s subplot with Saylor’s family as well, and while her family is at the height of dysfunction, I think S.K. Falls did a good job of putting all the pieces together.

There’s not terribly much of a plot in this book, but I don’t consider that a bad thing since it’s so character-driven. Most of the book consist of Saylor hanging out with her new friends, watching them cope with the diseases they actually have, and her Munchhausen’s and how it effects the way she keeps secrets from them. While I wish the truth had come out sooner, the way it happened in this book was really one of the only believable ways.

Final Impression: Secret for a Song was tough to read at times, but I thought it was an interesting and sad look at someone with such a hard-to-understand mental illness. Saylor was a great main character, someone who’s not exactly likable but sympathetic, and while I was sometimes frustrated with her actions, I also pitied her. I’d recommend this one, especially if you’re liking for a New Adult that’s different and tackles some pretty serious issues. 4/5 stars. ( )