If I Stay by Gayle Forman (Edited)

Pages: 196

Inside Flap:

"Just listen," Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel.

I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen.

"Stay," he says.

Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones. Stay true to her first love--music--even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind?

Then, one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it's the only one that matters.

If I Stay is a heartachingly beautiful book about the power of love, the true meaing of family, and the choices we all make.

Review:

It is the saddest/happiest book I think I have ever read; and it's beautiful all at the same time.

Can I just say, I love body instruments and that this is the smoothest played-out book I've read in a long while. Seriously; and no, I am not going to compare it to a baby's bottom--though it would be strangely accurate. Just going through Mia's memories and experiences spent with her closest and state-side loved ones is so comparable to my own that, I'm thinkin' the author knows her readers--she knows what might frustrate a girl her whole life without anyone else knowing it. If I Stay radiates so much feeling--whether it be love, lust, friendship, kinship, or that powerful feeling she gets during performances--when Mia goes over different points of her life.

If I Stay is definitely going into My Favorite Pile. It's witty, familiar, and sincere in so many ways, that it will not disappoint you. I seriously wish that more YA authors could have that connection between reader and character. If I Stay makes you think more curiously about the eternal questions we all struggle to answer, even if it is not up to us: Live or Die? The pros and cons. Why me? Makes you think how secure and stable you really are living and being in your own life.

Grade: A+

LiLi