Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman
Title: If I Stay
Author: Gayle Forman
Publisher: Speak (Penguin Group)
Publish Date: April 2, 2009
Why I decided to read this book? I chose to read If I Stay because it recently came out in theaters, and I wanted to read the book before I watched the movie. Honestly, before the movie came out, I had never heard of the book. I know, I was ashamed.
Cover: This cover was very creative, and I loved how it fit in with the book. I was intrigued by the cover; I wanted to know more. Also, it was interesting. I haven’t seen many book covers like this. It is beautiful.
Characters:
Mia- Mia is the main character in If I Stay. She is a very good cello player. She actually made me want to look up cello music because I never heard any music by it before. I’ll post a YouTube video of a cello player at the bottom.
Mia is very different from any of the other strong, dominant female characters in books I read. She showed a lot of emotion about being scared. It made her seem more real than the others. I felt bad for her because of her decision. Honestly, she’s the strongest female character because she had to choose whether to stay or not, hence the title. That takes some strength.
Adam- Adam is the punk rock boyfriend every girl wants. I was a bit shocked that he was dating Mia, like everyone else at their high school, but I guess opposites attract. I really liked Adam because he reminded me of 5SOS (5 Seconds of Summer) whom I happen to love. It was really cool.
Mom & Dad- I wish I has Mia’s parents as my own. They are AWESOME! I love how they were so punk rock and bad. They were both rebels which I found really interesting/amusing. Their attitudes shown through. They would not take crap from anyone. I love that in a character. I also love how they spoke their minds about everything.
I found the Dad very amusing by the fact that he used to be all punk and now he dressed like an old man. I love how they said that by the Dad dressing in vintage clothing was him rebelling again now that punk was cool. He is great.
Willow- I love how Willow can get pretty much anything. What made me really like her was that she got Adam in to see Mia. She earned some major bonus points for that.
Plot (SPOILER): The plot was very original. I loved the idea/concept. It was creative. I read how Gayle Forman got the idea for If I Stay, and it was so sad. This was based off of an event that actually happened (not the choosing if she stayed because there’s no way to prove that), but the car crash where everyone dies. It was so sad.
If I Stay was an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. My feelings were all over the place. I was guessing til the very end if Mia was going to stay or not. It was that good.
There was a very good background behind this novel. You could tell that the author took time to come with basically a life story for each character. She knew them so well, I thought they were real people. There were so many mini-stories that played into If I Stay. You get a lot of background on each character’s life and how it affects Mia’s decision.
Overall: I’m not sure why, but I didn’t love this book. I liked it, I just didn’t love it. It’s not one of those books that I just fell in love with. It was an amazing book, but it wasn’t one of my favorites. Honestly, I have no idea why. This is a really good book. I recommend you read it. You won’t regret it.
As promised, a cello... This is played by Yo-Yo Mama which is mentioned in this book; it's part of the reason why I choose this one. It actually sounds pretty cool.
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