Recently Read: If I Stay

Author: Gayle Forman
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Year Published: 2009
Status: First in dualology
Page Count: 234
Rating: 3/5

I of course have heard lots about Gayle Forman's If I Stay recently, but had not real intentions of picking it up. Then I saw the trailer for the movie and found a used copy for under three dollars so I decided to pick it up and give it a chance.

If you are unaware, this novel is about a high school senior named Mia, who is an excellent cello player with a very real chance of attending Julliard, and a musician boyfriend who is in a band that is about to make it big. One day Mia faces a tragedy, she and her family are in a car accident and she must choose if she wants to stay in this world and deal with the aftermath of this tragedy, or if she wants to leave.

The concept of this book is very unique and grabbed my interest, but I thought this book fell kind of flat. Two hundred and thirty-four pages was not enough to fully develop all of the relationships in this book. I felt that the book could have been fleshed out more to deepen the characters and their relationships to one another. I didn't really feel like I knew Mia's boyfriend or enough of their relationship to be impacted by their love story.

With that said, I did still enjoy this book, and found it a quick read with great pacing. This is obviously an emotional read, but I didn't really find that the emotions hit home as much as you would expect them to in a book like this. Mia has a little brother in the book, and whenever she talked about him it really hit home for me because I also have a little brother, but otherwise I felt detached from everyone in the book. I really liked Mia's best friend Kim and would have love to have seen more of her in the book.  

Overall, I thought this book was good, but not great. Regardless, I am interested in seeing the movie, as the trailer looks great, and made me tear up more than the book. Where She Went is the second book in this dualology and takes place three years after the end of this book and is told from the perspective of Mia's boyfriend. I'm not sure if I will pick the sequel up or not, so let me know your thoughts on the sequel as well as this book in the comments.