Book Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Title: If I Stay
Author: Gayle Forman
Page count: 262 pages
Series #: 1
Rating:  ★★★★★
Genre: YA/Contemporary

Mia had everything: a loving family, a gorgeous, admiring boyfriend, and a bright future full of music and full of choices. In an instant, almost all of that is taken from her. Caught between life and death, between a happy past and an unknowable future, Mia spends one critical day contemplating the only decision she has left. It is the most important decision she'll ever make.

Simultaneously tragic and hopeful, this is a romantic, riveting, and ultimately uplifting story about memory, music, living, dying, loving.

Behold fans of Before I Fall! This is yet another book about death and self-discovery.

I love this book to pieces, okay.  I think it's amazing how Gayle Forman created up this story. I mean, before the accident, we get a glimpse of how Mia's family is. How they're weird, funny, and caring. You get to sense how much they really love each other. That's how I cringed reading through the accident, how it was just so sudden. After I read that part, you could basically just sit in a corner and be scared for the rest of your life, because the future is unpredictable. That accident happened to Mia and her family, as much as it could happen to anyone else.

Another thing that I loved was how much I believed it. My head was practically filled with 'what if's' and huge theories that maybe if someone in Mia's situation could be in that state.

And of course, I couldn't have just left this review with 5 stars without a book boyfriend. Here we have Adam, the rocker-type of guy who'd take a job as a pizza delivery guy just to take you to a Yo-Yo Ma concert. And I absolutely loved how he shows his love to Mia, how he thinks she's perfect in every way, even though Mia constantly asks, "Why me?"

In this book, we join Mia as she reassesses her life, her lovelife, and her self. Is it really worthy to stay? Or would it be better to just ease the lives of everyone else worried about her?

I think all in all it was an amazing story about love, choices, hurt and loss. It's absolutely heart-breaking. But then again, you'd have to read it for yourself. This is highly recommended!