If I Stay by Gayle Forman is a young adult fiction book, and has recently had a movie made based on it. I never saw the movie nor read the book, so I decided to read the book first. I was unfamiliar with the author prior to this, I only read it because I heard that it was good. Now that I have read her work I am currently reading another book by her because I like the way she writes.
The book is about a girl named Mia who is just about to go to college and start her career as a musician at Julliard. Unfortunately, she gets into a car crash and loses the most important part of her life which is her family. What she has left is her boyfriend, her best friend, and her grandparents. When she awakens at the scene of the crash, she notices that something is strange. She can see her body and see the paramedics working around her, but she is not in her body, she is watching from the outside and no one can see or hear her. The rest of the book is told from her "ghostly" state, and describes everything that is happening in her out of body experience. The book focuses on Mia deciding on whether she wants to stay alive, re-enter her body, and deal with living the rest of her life without her family--or leave and not have to deal with the grief she will have to endure.
The main character Mia is a very talented girl, as well as her boyfriend Adam. They are both musicians so the author often illustrates how that brings them together and how it influences their lives. A lot of the book involves Mia recounting her memories, so the reader can see how she develops from being a young girl into the person she is. She is pretty much the only person who changes in the book because the rest of the characters are only experiencing what is happening in the present, unlike Mia who is going to many different places. The characters are very likable as well as easy to understand.
The language the author uses is easy to understand and I was never confused on what was going on in the book. Having the conflict happen so early into the book definitely grabbed my attention and made me want to keep reading.
Overall I enjoyed reading the this and I think that it was very well written. I like the plot of the book itself and it wasn't like any other book I have read before. I would recommend reading it, however it is relatively short so it doesn't build into much, it just focuses on a two day time period. If you are looking for a book to get attached to this probably isn't it since it is such a quick read.
The book is about a girl named Mia who is just about to go to college and start her career as a musician at Julliard. Unfortunately, she gets into a car crash and loses the most important part of her life which is her family. What she has left is her boyfriend, her best friend, and her grandparents. When she awakens at the scene of the crash, she notices that something is strange. She can see her body and see the paramedics working around her, but she is not in her body, she is watching from the outside and no one can see or hear her. The rest of the book is told from her "ghostly" state, and describes everything that is happening in her out of body experience. The book focuses on Mia deciding on whether she wants to stay alive, re-enter her body, and deal with living the rest of her life without her family--or leave and not have to deal with the grief she will have to endure.
The main character Mia is a very talented girl, as well as her boyfriend Adam. They are both musicians so the author often illustrates how that brings them together and how it influences their lives. A lot of the book involves Mia recounting her memories, so the reader can see how she develops from being a young girl into the person she is. She is pretty much the only person who changes in the book because the rest of the characters are only experiencing what is happening in the present, unlike Mia who is going to many different places. The characters are very likable as well as easy to understand.
The language the author uses is easy to understand and I was never confused on what was going on in the book. Having the conflict happen so early into the book definitely grabbed my attention and made me want to keep reading.
Overall I enjoyed reading the this and I think that it was very well written. I like the plot of the book itself and it wasn't like any other book I have read before. I would recommend reading it, however it is relatively short so it doesn't build into much, it just focuses on a two day time period. If you are looking for a book to get attached to this probably isn't it since it is such a quick read.