Book Review: lll

If I Stay, by Gayle Forman, is about a girl and her family who get in a terrible car accident. Mia's family dies and she has to choose between life and death. Over the course of one day, Mia gets to look at what she'll be leaving if she chooses to die. She also gets to see what she'll have if she stays. She's reminded of the past, she is aware of the present, and realizes her future of being an orphan or an angel. Throughout the whole book Mia remembers past experiences with her family and her friends. She remembers the first time she played her cello, or the first time she met Adam, her boyfriend, or memories of family experiences. She remembers family experiences, like bonfires and concerts. She remembers when Adam brought her to her first Yoyo Ma concert. She also gets to see what's going on at the hospital, what her family talks about, and what happened to her mom, brother, and father. She's in a sort of ghostly state, she can't feel pain, but she can hear and touch things. No one can see her, feel her, or hear her. In the end, she makes the hardest decision of her life; she chooses to live.  

A theme in If I Stay, is that life is full of tough decisions. When Mia's family gets in a car crash, Mia has to make the hardest decision of her life. "It's the hardest thing I will ever have to do" (234). If she chooses to live, she will be an orphan. If she dies, she will be with her family. "I'm not sure I want to wake up" (164). Mia doesn't want to leave her family by choosing to live, but she doesn't want to leave the people that care about her on Earth. "How am I supposed to decide this?" (1). Making tough decisions is a very important theme in this book. 

I highly recommend this book to other middle school and high school students. Gayle Forman wrote other books too like Where She Went, Just One Day, Just One Year, and Just One Night. I'm reading Where She Went, which is the sequel to If I Stay, and it's a really good book.    

    

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