“Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you.”
– Gayle Forman, If I Stay
Title: If I Stay
Author: Gayle Forman
Length: 199 pages
Genre: Fiction, YA, romance, contemporary realistic fiction(never heard of this one before!)
My Rating: 3.5/5 stars
My Age Rating: 15+
Content Notes: Death, grief, injuries and gore, mild and strong language, substance use, medical nudity, crude jokes
“But the you who you are tonight is the same you I was in love with yesterday, the same you I’ll be in love with tomorrow.”
– Gayle Forman, If I Stay
Synopsis:
Everything can change in an instant. For Mia, the day started like any other, surrounded by a loving family, an adoring boyfriend, and a bright future filled with music and infinite possibilities. What she never expected is the choice before her now. Caught between life and death, between a happy past and an uncertain future, Mia has to contemplate everything she holds dear and make a choice: to go or to stay.
Review
Okay, before I get started I need to state that I have very mixed feelings about this book, meaning that this review may not be very black and white. It’s full of personal opinions.
The context/story line of this book is very…interesting. To be honest it was the first time I had read anything like it. And while I did enjoy it, the ending didn’t leave me fully satisfied because I still had a lot of questions and felt the book was left slightly unfinished.
When I was venting about it to my family my mom said that it may have been because this book would be better understood by someone who has experienced more grief in their life.
I don’t know exactly if that is true but I do know that this is the type of book that every person would perceive differently.
Overall I really enjoyed the writing style for this book. It’s poetic but not flowery. And the main character’s voice is soft, simple and sad. The writing flips between present and past memories which got me slightly worried that it would be confusing but surprisingly it wasn’t. The memories were perfectly placed and written so that most of the book I didn’t have to think about the change in time.
Let’s talk about the characters. Personally Mia’s character wasn’t my favourite, probably because I couldn’t relate very much with her. Though in my defense, not many people probably can, because not many have out of body experiences. But her character did grow on me eventually, it just took a little time.
Similarly the other characters took a little bit of time too. Other than her family who I loved immediately. I do wish that the characters had been slightly more relatable as that would have made me like them more but we can’t have everything.
Let’s move on to romance, as a prewarning, this was my biggest complaint with the book. I feel like the romance in this book was lacking in some parts, it didn’t feel like the fluffy, all is well romance in most romance books. But then again, this book isn’t a fluffy, happy book, so, I guess it kinda makes sense.
The romance in this book is REAL. Their relationship isn’t perfect because in real life there isn’t such a thing as a perfect relationship. So once I wrapped my head around that it was fun to read. But still I just felt like the romance didn’t have that spark and I felt like it could have been written better, especially considering the circumstances.
So if you’re looking for a book that specifically has an amazing romance factor then I wouldn’t suggest going out of your way to read this one.
It’s time to cover the content of this book. Because I know that the movie isn’t clean in terms of sexual content I was slightly worried, but I was overjoyed at the fact that this book was actually considerably clean. The romance never goes much farther than kissing. There is one scene where they go a bit farther than kissing, pretending to play each other like a cello or guitar but it didn’t feel too inappropriate in my eyes. There are a fair number of crude jokes here and there, and are also a few scenes where she is in different states of undress, but it is never sexual, it’s mostly because of medical reasons.
As a warning, there is a fair amount of swearing, both mild profanity and strong language, which was slightly annoying to read and I would have preferred if it weren’t there.
So this book doesn’t have too much sexual content but some swearing and heavier themes. It is pretty emotional and heartbreaking, with many lines that will get you tearing up. Because of this I would recommend this book for ages 15+.
Overall I would give this book a 3.5 out of 5 star rating. It wasn’t my favourite but it opened me up to a different type of writing and themes along with giving me a lot to think about afterwards. It somehow managed to be sad yet still had a level of humor. I did think that the romance was lacking in places and the ending left me with a lot of questions…but wait a second…the world is right again because I just found out there is a sequel to this book. I will report back soon on my findings!
But in the meantime don’t wait for me, go grab a copy, get emotionally wrecked, and then we can suffer together waiting for answers.
Happy Reading,
Ava
P.S. Click on this Link to read my review on the sequel, “Where She Went”
If you want your own copy of “If I Stay” click this Link
This one comes across as a more “complicated” read – your ending to the review had me laughing.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! This book was probably one of the more intense books I’ve read in a while. It definitely strayed away from the fluffy romances I’ve been obsessed with recently!