If I Stay Review

Today was another day spent mostly at home with my sick button…I did head in to work for a few hours to knock some things out, but then it was right back home to my sick boy.  He’s doing a little better I think, but he’s definitely not my normal rambunctious dragon 🙂

Since I’ve had a little more travel time on my hands during the last month, I got a little ahead of myself and I already finished the book that I was reading for the June book club, so I thought I would post my review…Enjoy!

For the Peanut Butter Fingers Blog book club for the month of June, the book of choice was If I Stay by Gayle Forman and when I saw the caption on the front cover that said, “will appeal to fans of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight,” I was extremely excited.  I have also read Stephanie Meyer’s book The Host (supposedly coming to theatres soon!) and while it was little difficult to get in to, I thoroughly enjoy her writing so when I boarded the flight to NYC, If I Stay was in hand.

The description of the novel…

In the blink of an eye, everything changes. 17-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck.  Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces-to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make.  Heartwrenchingly beautiful, Mia’s story will stay with you for a long, long time.

Spoiler Alert!

This novel started out very easily for me and I was hooked from about page 2.  However, I think that may have been the problem too…I was hooked at page 2.  The accident happens very quickly in the first of the novel and then the remainder of the novel is Mia bouncing back and forth between the present and some of the memories from her past with her parents, brother Teddy, boyfriend Adam, best friend Kim, and her cello camp playing friends.  I had a tendency to skim over all the back story just because I wanted to know what she was going to choose, life or death?  Her parents were killed instantly and she found out about half way through the book that her baby brother had been killed as well, so she basically has nothing else to live for except a possible Julliard scholarship, Kim, and Adam, and their boyfriend/girlfriend relationship had been waning before the accident anyway.  So would she choose to live or go be with her family?  With each page turn, I would just skim along until she was back in the present and I could get a glimpse of what she was going to choose.  However, she didn’t make her choice until the very last page of the book, when she chooses to live, squeezes Adam’s hand from the ICU hospital bed, after her makes a heartfelt plea for her to live and says that he will let her go as long as she chooses to live, and then Adam says, “Mia?”

The jumping back and forth between present and past always bothers me a little bit and I thought that the relationship between Mia and Adam sounded about like a relationship between 20-year-olds, not 17 and 18-year-olds.  I loved the family picture that Forman painted of Mia’s quirky, former hard rock family, that while very unorthodox, was extremely loving and caring and always made time to be with each other.

It was a sad novel to experience Mia’s pain and loss, especially when she finds out about Teddy and you think she’s going to choose to die until the last few pages, so all in all, it kept my attention and was quite suspenseful and a SUPER easy read.  After I read If I Stay, I found out there is a sequel that was released two years ago called Where She Went that is written from Adam’s point of view a few years after Mia wakes up, but I don’t know if I want to read it or not.  In my head, I already have a perfect picture of Mia and Adam and what happened, so I’m not sure if I want to shatter that or not.  All in all, I would give If I Stay 4 stars.

Read any good books lately?  I need another good novel suggestion!