Saving Zoe by Alyson Noel is about a 15 year old girl named Echo who is dealing with the year long aftermath of her older sister's death. In a small town like the one Echo lives in, things like a murder are talked about for a long time, and everyone always pities the victim's family. Echo is still having a hard time with the stares, whispers, and pity she receives from everyone at school, and things just seem to escalate when she starts her first year in high school. But when her sister's past boyfriend gifts her Zoe's old diary and tells her it will explain everything, Echo's world starts to blur. She thought she knew Zoe so well, but it turns out she hardly knew her at all.

So I actually picked this book up after listening to Laura and Vanessa Marano talking about their recently released movie inspired by this book. They made it seem like it really discussed things like online sexual exploitation, which is an extremely dark but important issue. I expected that something secret was going on in Zoe's world, like she was kidnapped for sex trafficking and then ended up being murdered because she refused to cooperate. But that was not the case. The story mores deals with Echo's sense of self-identity, and how she believed that she would have a much more exciting life if she was more like Zoe. She gets in with some of the wrong people, and she quickly learns that following in Zoe's path may lead her to end up just like Zoe, which may not be the best idea.

The writing style of this story is very juvenile. I found it easy to stay engaged, but found myself inwardly rolling my eyes and cringing at some of the things that were going on. Echo's character really irritated me, and I think that might have been because it didn't really make sense as to why she was trying to be like her sister. She said multiple times throughout the story that Zoe's choices were what got her killed and it really wasn't anyone else's fault, yet she still went along with Teresa when she went to see Jason and Tom, and then tried to get Marc to have a relationship with her. It was just awkward to me that she read about Marc, and they weren't even very intimate details or anything from Zoe's diary, and decided that from reading about him that she should be attracted to him in the same way Zoe was. She wasn't a strong character, which is something I personally look for in a story.

The other thing I was majorly disappointed in is it barely touched on the online sexual exploitation which I thought would be a really big thing for this story. It never really even said that any of it ever ended up online, and it had nothing to do with why she was murdered. I may have gone into it with higher expectations though just based off the interview I heard, but they made it seem like this was the main focal point of the story, and it definitely wasn't. They barely went into how Zoe was murdered either, there was basically an off-hand mention of it. I think it would have been a stronger story and much more powerful if it went more into the online sexual exploitation if Jason had shared the video online or through another source and then Zoe threatened to expose him and he killed her. Having the random murderer who they barely even talked about because he found her online had nothing to do with the sexual exploitation of it all. If the two had been more connected it would have been much more effective.

I will watch the movie still and see if the way they tell the story is any better than the actual book. I know that the reasons I said I didn't enjoy it seem morbid and may make me sound like a cynic, but sometimes the harder details need to be delved deeper into to promote a more powerful and aware story. Touching on the topics is important and I'm glad I read a story that did touch on them, but I was left wanting more of a connection between what seemed to be the more main point of the story and Zoe's murder. It just felt like the story didn't really know where it wanted to go, so it went in both directions and it seemed disconnected within itself. Would I recommend it? Maybe. But I would say go in with low expectations for the characters and the story itself.