Book Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

released: 2009

pages: 210

series: If I Stay Book 1

Summary taken from goodreads:

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 heart achingly beautiful book about the power of love, the true meaning of family, and the choices we all make.

My thoughts:
If I Stay is told in first person point of view. The narrator is Mia & she is in a coma. While in her coma she has an out of body experience where she can see everything that happens. She sees the scene of the accident, the first hospital she is taken to, the helicopter ride to the second hospital, & finally the second hospital she is taken to. While at the second hospital she is able to see when her family & friends arrive to see her.

The book is told half in the present, primarily the day of the crash, as well as in flashbacks. Through the flashbacks you are able to get a glimpse of Mia & the life she had before the accident.

Favorite Character: 
Obviously Mia would be most people's favorite character. She is who the reader knows the most about & you are able to hear & relate to her thoughts and emotions. However, my favorite character is her boyfriend, Adam.

Adam is in a band and had a big gig the night of Mia's accident. She is not even sure if he will show up to the hospital. Not because he doesn't care or wouldn't want to miss the gig, but because she is not sure who would contact him. However, her best friend Kim tracks Adam down to give him the bad news. What I loved about that is that is something I would wonder about. If I was to have accident, who would let the people I love most know?

Adam rushes to the hospital and then spends forever trying to get to see Mia in the ICU. When he is finally able to see her he asks her to come back, to stay. That it wouldn't matter if they were no longer together, so long as she was somewhere in the world & not gone forever. I loved that. For Adam to make such a huge sacrifice. Yes, he didn't know she could hear him but it didn't matter, he meant it.

Negatives:
-The book is very short. To me the longer the book the better. I read this book in a day, along with doing other things.
-The book is sad. That is a given, I mean the main character is in a coma, what else would you expect?

Positives:
-Mia was an easy character to fall into.
-The love story between Adam & Mia is so sweet. They are young, but you really pull for them to stay together.

Want to know what happens next in Mia & Adam’s lives? Read Where She Went by Gayle Forman (review to come eventually). It is set 3 years in the future, and this time is from Adam’s perspective.