Another book about a sibling’s death and how it affects the one left behind. Echo’s beautiful but wild, older sister was murdered almost a year ago and everyone in town thinks her boyfriend from a troubled family had something to do with it. What really happened – and could happen again to one of Echo’s school friends - is revealed through a combination of new relationships and Zoe’s own diary, which comes into Echo’s hands via Zoe’s old boyfriend. Interesting characters with authentic voices. Recommended. ( )

Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com

Fifteen-year-old Echo has had to deal with more tragedy than anyone, regardless of age, should have to bear. Her parents' relationship is made up of alternating periods of arguments and silence. Her two best friends, Abby and Jenay, seem to be drifting apart -- from her, and from each other. She has a boyfriend named Parker, a great guy that she can't seem to work up any emotion towards. And her older sister, Zoe, is still dead and gone.

Echo and Zoe could not have been more different. Echo is diligent in her studies, quite happy to take the quiet path of least resistance. Zoe, on the other hand, had the sunny, naive disposition that led her to live life however the mood struck her. In fact, it was that same sweet and fun personality that may have led to her death.

Zoe's boyfriend, Marc, is still struggling to deal with the death of the girl he loved. However, he has something that has helped him a great deal; something that he decides to give to Echo, to help her know the sister who no longer is. Zoe left her diary with Marc the last time they were together, and he's held onto it ever since. Now it's Echo's, and, at first, she resists reading it. After all, she already knew everything there was to know about Zoe, right? Turns out, not so much.

As Echo becomes immersed in the last few months of Zoe's life, she learns that she really didn't know her sister at all. The struggles, the insecurities, the traumas that her sister faced and never spoke about -- these aren't things that Echo would have ever associated with her bright, popular sister. As she delves deeper, into both the diary and the need to be like Zoe, Echo learns that although her sister will never return, she will always live in Echo's memory -- and in the justice that Echo is determined to get in her sister's name.

Although Alyson Noel is best known for her lighter, contemporary stories, she has taken a serious, heartbreaking plot line and turned it into a winner that you'll never forget. I found myself as immersed into Zoe's life as Echo did, and found it hard to put the book down the entire time I was reading. Ms. Noel has done an awesome job with this weightier subject matter, and I hope to read more stories in this vein from her in the future. ( )

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Echo is a 15 year old girl, living with the fact that her 16 year old sister, Zoë, was tragically murdered a year ago. Everyone is their town still blames Zoë's boyfriend Marc for the murder, because he has a shaky alibi. Echo's best friends, Jenay and Abby try to keep Marc away from her at school, but he manages to talk to her one day anyway. He lets her in on his secret, that he has Zoë's diary and he wants her to have it and read it, to really learn about her sister. Even thought she doesn't want to, because of privacy, she can't help but to read the diary. Secluding herself, Echo dives into the diary and starts piecing all of the parts together of Zoë's life, that ended in her death. With Marc along for the rind, Echo finds out more about her sister that she ever could have.

Saving Zoë is a engrossing and heartbreaking story about these two sisters that have nothing in common, but love for one another. This book will keep you turning the pages, just to see what it was that took Zoë's life and what really happened between her and Marc. When you read this one, you find yourself trying to hurry Echo up, so she can read the diary some more to find out what happened to this beautiful girl with big dreams. ( )