If I Stay by Gayle Forman

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Series: If I Stay #1

Release Date: May 13th 2010
Publisher: Black Swan
Amazon Book Depository

Goodreads Summary 

Life can change in an instant. A cold February morning . . . a snowy road . . . and suddenly all of Mia's choices are gone. Except one. As alone as she'll ever be, Mia must make the most difficult choice of all. Gripping, heartrending and ultimately life-affirming, If I Stay will make you appreciate all that you have, all that you've lost - and all that might be.

17 year old Mia has enough choices in her life; college, music, boyfriend. While on the way to visit Mia’s grandparents her family car is hit by another driver and all her choices are put on hold while the only one matters. Whether or not she stays.  

I don’t really think I have an opinion on this book. The book was neither great nor terrible. It was just okay.

I read that the book was heart breaking, and beautifully powerful. I guess I can see where everyone was getting that from. I mean death was involved therefore a lot of depressing emotions were stirred up. But not for me. I’m a sucker for depressing books and I was really hoping that I would be moved by this book! Unfortunately I wasn’t moved at all, there were times when I thought that I might tear up but I didn’t. It’s not because my heart is made of ice or anything like that I just didn’t find this book as moving as a lot of other people did.

The idea for it is great, it made me realise how silly some of my choices where when it came down to the big choice in Mia’s life. One day she’s planning her future and the next she’s watching her family die and her lifeless body be brought into hospital as all her loved ones wait to find out whether or not she’ll make it.

I wasn’t at all surprised what happened in the book. For me everything was clear from the beginning I just didn’t know her family was going to die. I thought that this teenage girl who is a quiet geeky girl who likes classical music will be in a car accident one day and will then need to figure out if she stays or goes. I already figured out that there will be some form of out of body experience. I was actually shocked by her family’s death however and I was sad, I mean they seemed like a great bunch and it wasn’t fair they had to die. But apart from this I pretty much knew what was going to happen. The whole love story between her and Adam, the ending of the book was predictable as crap (mostly because I know there is a second book).

The characters in this book were good. I loved Mia although I didn’t click with her much. Her brother is super cute and I wanted to squeeze him, her parents are seriously amazing. Might be the fact that I like punk rock and not classical music. I didn’t feel like I had a connection with any of these characters which was a real shame.

The book itself was a really pleasant read, the way it was laid out was great. The flash backs to when Mia was a child and remembering all the great memories was super effective. I think that’s the part that I love the most about this book.

I wish that I got to enjoy this book more and that it wasn’t just an okay book for me. I probably won’t read the sequel but I hopefully will reread it again.