27 May 2012

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

If I Stay by Gayle Forman
Publisher: Speak
Publication Date: April 6, 2010
Number of Pages: 234
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have to say I’ve never read a book like this before Gayle Forman did an awesome job keeping me on the edge of my seat! This book is based on a girl named Mia who get’s in a car accident with her Mom, Dad and little brother Teddy. The problem is they all end up dying basically right away except her. (don’t worry that was all in the first few pages so it’s not a spoiler) After the death of her parents and brother Mia is unconscious in the hospital but basically she’s like in ghost like form near her body at all times. The hard part is that she has to decide if she wants to die with her parent’s and brother, or stay alive with her other family, boyfriend, and best friend.

The first thing I have to say is I’m so happy with how Gayle put the book together. I’m glad that the big tragedy happened in the beginning because it was easy to let them go. If we would of gotten used to the characters and then they died it would have been a lot harder to let them go and keep reading. But I wasn’t attached to the character right away so it wasn’t very hard (it sounds almost like a bad thing but it’s really not!)

The choice that Mia had to make is so hard and through out the book I kept thinking if it were me what would I do? And I honestly couldn’t begin to tell you what I would do because I really couldn’t choose. Mia is obviously a really strong character because instead of crying and freaking out the whole time she was picking her brain going through memories and trying to choose.

Other characters we met were Adam Mia’s boyfriend and I have to say I was pretty impressed with how badly he needed to get into that hospital room to see Mia. At first I was afraid that when he wouldn’t show up at all but when he came I couldn’t stop turning the pages to see what happened. The last main(ish) character is Mia’s best friend Kim who went out of her way not like Willow but did a lot to make sure that Adam got to see his girl. They weren’t always friends from the start but after there big blow out they’d become best friends and have been that way ever since so you can imagine how hard it was for Kim to find out her best friend could die at any minute. She stayed strong though even when her own mother was falling apart next to her and that’s one of the things I loved about Kim!

Overall I give the book 5 out of 5 stars because it was a fast and comforting story. It kept me turning pages as fast as possible throughout the whole book and now I can’t wait to read the second one =)

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3 comments:

  1. This book surprised me by how much I fell in love with it too! My librarian recommended it to my class at one of those group sessions where they try to talk teens into reading (which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't LOL), and I was intrigued. I never expected to add it to my favourites shelf, and I definitely didn't expect someone as amazing as Adam either!

    Awesome review, Paige! I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did :) <3

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  2. I have not read this yet but I really want to. After reading your review I hope I can get to it soon.

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  3. This was such an interesting read. Mia went through so much and the flashbacks made me fall in love with Adam. He was so sweet. I would have chose to stay. She has so much to still live for. Where She Went really broke my heart. I was balling the whole time.

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