Help! I’m Alive is available at:

After video footage of a teenager’s death is shared on social media, a suburban Vancouver community is left to try to make sense of his suspected suicide.

Help! I’m Alive explores the aftermath through the eyes of four people all suddenly confronted with who they have been and how they should be in the wake of such loss: Ash, Winona, Anik, and Pavan.

“Help! I’m Alive doesn’t exploit the despair that can lead to suicide but instead asks its characters and readers to look at the ways they connect — or don’t — in modern society … Basran’s insight, voice and deep character work make this an affecting read”

- Shelf Awareness

Award-winning author Gurjinder Basran’s Help! I’m Alive is a clear-eyed exploration of meaningful connection in the modern era.

Unflinching but life-affirming, the novel is a coming-to-terms story about loneliness and connection, love and suffering, and the moments, however fleeting, that bring us together.

Download Book club discussion guide for Help! I’m Alive here

PRAISE for Help! I’m Alive

“ Gurjinder Basran brings a laser-focused intensity to the interactions and concerns of alienated teens, the cruelties and generosities of friendship, intimacy and family, the ‘small interventions’ that make life bearable. ‘When we’re the luckiest we don’t even know it’s happening,’ she writes. By the end of Help! I’m Alive, though, that is no longer true; having come through a terrible ordeal, these flawed but compelling characters have found the grace notes to guide them onward in their journey.”

— Rachel Rose, author of The Octopus Has Three Hearts

“Basran sensitively examines four characters with their own sets of psychological struggles, all of whom gradually and to a believable degree begin to move past them and open up, offering a hint of hope to the reader.”

— Booklist