Archive for Gayle Forman

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

stayOops-I thought for sure I had written about this.  This one has been getting a lot of buzz lately (I belive it has been optioned for a movie), and with good reason.  It’s an intensely emotional novel.  Forman introduces us to a family that loves each other, is funky, the parents and the kids genuinely like each other, and you like and admire them. Then she kills most of them.  Mia and her family are in a car accident. While the others die immediately Mia is left in a coma in intensive care.  She hovers between life and death, aware of everything that is going on, and aware that the choice of living or dying is up to her.  What makes this novel so intense right from the outset is that you know that no matter what she chooses it will be heartbreaking and sad.  I cried and cried at the end. Don’t worry, though–you will not be crying continuously from beginning to end as Forman puts in plenty of flashbacks to heartwarming happier times, as well as weaves in the story of Mia and her boyfriend.

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