SALES, Leila

Fed up with how taken for granted she feels by everyone in her life, seventeen-year-old Arden Googles the question, “Why doesn’t anyone love me as much as I love them?” The query leads her to Peter, a boy her age who writes an online journal called “Tonight the Streets Are Ours.” Arden can’t stop reading Peter’s blog; she thinks he understands her in a way others don’t. So, on a day she’s feeling particularly unloved, Arden and her best friend, Lindsey, drive six hours from Cumberland, Maryland, to New York City to find him. What follows is a wild night involving a party at an “art fraternity,” a fight with Lindsey, a limousine, a doll store, and Peter himself, who isn’t the person Arden imagined. Alternating poignancy and humor, and with obvious compassion for her characters, Sales (This Song Will Save Your Life, rev. 9/13) gently imparts subtle wisdom about truth in storytelling, asserting independence, and, above all, what it means to love someone (and not just romantically). “Maybe loving somebody means simply they bring out the best in you, and you bring out the best in them