Monday, October 27, 2014

If I Stay - Gayle Forman Review


Series: If I Stay (#1)
Book: If I Stay
Author: Gayle Forman 

Book Synopsis:
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 meaning of family, and the choices we all make.

Book Review:
In life we all know we are give choices. We hear about them all the time. How they make or break us, how sometimes there's only one right choice and other times any choice you make can be right as long as it's what you truly want. We thrive from the idea we are able to make our own choices and in the end we have to be happy with what we made because at the time it was what we wanted. No one ever talks about the idea that you have a choice after death, or should I say the in between.
In If I Stay our main character Mia has an important choice to make. Should she move on and let go of her ties to this plane, or should she stay. There's not much waiting for her on earth, but if she does have the choice would she make the right one? That's what she contemplates as she watches things play out before her. 
I loved the way the story is told. We see things as they happen to Mia, we're there with her as she watches loved ones waiting and praying for her. Yet, we're not just there. We go with her as she travels back to her memories, and we learn about her life. We learn who she is, who she isn't, where she may go and where she's coming from. Mia is by far my favorite character in this book, not because she's main the character but because of who she is. She doesn't try to be anything she isn't, she is who she is. She's insecure, she's smart, she's a fantastic cellist, and above all she's a teenager who has to make a tough choice no one should ever have to make. 
As I read this book, I went with Mia through it all. I went with her as she was with Adam, Kim, her parents. I laughed at some parts, I sniffled at others. This book is as fantastic as I've heard it would be and I'm sad I'm getting to it now. The only thing I didn't like was the use of some of the larger vocabulary. At times it seemed to me some of the words didn't fit in, I don't mean definition wise but phrase wise. As though the word didn't work in the way the sentence was constructed. This wasn't for all the words but there were time where I felt it disrupted the way the sentences flowed and my reading. 
All in all this book was a fantastic read. Great characters, great plot, and it's really made me think since I began reading it to the end. 

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