Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4374400-if-i-stay?ac=1
My Gooreads rating: 5/5
I am proud to say that I read this beautiful book in one sit alone yesterday.The book is really short,so it was quite an easy thing to do.I'd heard mixed things about the book,but the majority of them were good,so I really wanted to give it a try and see for myself what I think of it.
I was surely expecting it to be good,maybe even incredible,because the premise of it sounded fantastic to me.However,my expectations were still overcome.There were so many elements that made the book come as a surprise to me,I was,once again,expecting them to be there,but the intensity of them surprised me.Basically,I had been crying for about 6 hours straight by the time I put the book down.
For those who don't know,this is the story of a young girl named Mia,who gets into a car accident with her entire family.Her parents die on the spot and her brother passes later on,while she is in a coma,faced with the hardest decision of her life:will she stay on Earth and go back into her body or will she leave to be reunited with her family?Throughout the book,the reader is presented with things Mia sees during her out of body experience during the coma,but also flashbacks of her life before the accident(memories of her family,stories about her love for music and wish to go to Julliard,her friendship with a girl named Kim who has remained her best friend,but also her love story with another young musician whose name is Adam).
First of all,I must say that Gayle Forman's writing style is brilliant.It isn't an easy task to insert so many flashbacks into a narration,this could've gone wrong in so many ways,yet Gayle did a brilliant job in mastering this,her flashback passages are well thought and inserted after there is one "trigger" like element during Mia's observation of things surrouding her.That was one of the elements I truly appreciated.
I also found Mia,as a narrator,truly incredible.It was so easy for the writer to emphatise with her and to see her struggle,her inabiity to fully decide whether she would stay or go,you can really see the pros and cons she makes for each of the decision,but also her being a kid,needing some advice and not wanting to make this hard of a decision on her own.
Also,I thought the other characters were incredible as well.From the flashbacks you get to see of Mia's family,her parents seem fantastic,they have such dimension to them as characters,her family as a whole is incredible,so this is a focal element of the story as well,very beautifully potrayed.Her other relatives also left me in awe,especially her grandparents.Despite them having very different ways to deal with grief,they were all there for each other,trying to be strong.The one who struck me most was,of course,Mia's grandfather,who doesn't ask her to stay,no,he says that it's okay if she can't do it,that he understands if she has to leave.I just found that very touching.
Friendship is also a key element to the story.On the one hand,we have Kim and her friendship with Mia,and on the other there are Willow and Henry,who were so close to Mia's parents.It's so incredible to see those two plans intersect and Willow be there for Kim throughout this.Both flashbacks of Mia's best friend and of her parents' best friends were beautiful.Gayle Forman didn't only show the cutesy,sweet moments of friendship,but also the fights,the misunderstandings,which also added more depth to the story.
Obviously,I have to tal about this as well,there is a big element called love.Of course I have talked about love for family and friends already,but we are also presented with the romantic aspect of love that Mia and Adam have and their love for music.I think it is beautiful how those two sort of collide,music being what brings them together,their love for music expands as their love for each other.Again,Mia doesn't only remember the happy times of their relationship,but also the pain,the struggles,the awkwardness from the beginning and the fights.Yet,eventually,Adam is the one to make her stay.
I would absolutely suggest this book for anyone who isn't intimidated of a sad book,because I found it brilliant.Obviously,there were low points,because nothing in this world is perfect,but why think about negative things when you can just cheerish something you truly like?Let me know if you do read this thing.
Love always,
Me.
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