One Last Song is about Saylor, who suffers from Munchausen Syndrome. The story starts where she recounts swallowing a needle at age 7 in order to get her mother’s attention. Currently she is injecting herself with saliva in order to create abscesses on her body. She is seeing a shrink who she tells she would like to work at the hospital. Mainly it’s to gain access to supplies she may need, but no one else needs to know that. She ends up getting a volunteer position helping to set up and break down the chairs and snacks for support groups that meet there. There is a group, TIDD, meeting in a room she is in reading a book on MS – and one of the guys assumes she has it and she is new to the group. While she does have an MS (Munchausen Syndrome) she tells them that she has multiple sclerosis. She ends up becoming very close with the people in this groups, even gaining a boyfriend. She loves the attention and has seemed to stop making herself sick even. But what happens when they find out the truth?
*possible spoiler ahead*
Although she wanted to come clean on her own terms, she ends up getting found out before she has the chance to let anyone know. Will her new friends understand? Will they think she used them? Most of all – will they forgive her before she is forced to go away to college in another state?
I really liked this book – it was a bit different than anything else I had read and really drew me in. There are a lot of characters with a lot of things going on and it was interesting to see it all unfold how it did – learning about each other as it went along and seeing them all help each other and try to remain optimistic, even though they know that they are all very near to falling victim to their diseases.
I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.
About the Book
I was seven when I swallowed my first needle.
My mom freaked out and rushed me to the emergency room.
She stayed by my side all night.
I never wanted it to end.
When you spend your whole life feeling invisible-when your parents care more about deals and deadlines than they do about you-you find ways of making people take notice. Little things at first. Then bigger. It’s scary how fast it grows. Then one day something happens that makes you want to stop. To get better. To be better. And for the first time, you understand what it’s like to feel whole, happy . . . loved. For the first time, you love someone back.
For me, that someone was Drew.