Book #16: if i stay, by Gayle Forman
Apr. 17th, 2010 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityI heard about this book after Christmas from Tamora Pierce's website, but I was being good and not buying hard covers at the time, so I passed it over. Then a week or so ago, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
m_stiefvater reminded me that the soft cover was coming out. Then I got paid and had to go to Chapters anyway, and I thought "I am going to buy 'if i stay'."
You all need to go and get this book. Right now.
The front cover proudly asserts "will appeal to fans of Stephenie Meyer's TWILIGHT", and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Except they both take place in the Pacific Northwest. Seriously, that's it. Also, this book has one of the most amazing characters I've come across in a LONG TIME and that is SAYING SOMETHING.
I bought it at around 3 this afternoon, and then went to Second Cup, because it wasstephdub's last shift. I got to page 21 and realized that I couldn't read this book in the window of the store. I needed to sit in the back, where no one could see me tear up. About half way through, I realized that even that wasn't going to do it, and had to out it away entirely until I got home. And then it was this wondefully heartbreaking ride to the end. And then I had to put the book down because I was hyperventilating, and then I wept.
So read this book. Have kleenex handy.
This book is entirely structure dependent, and I think the author built it amazingly well. Because you always got the "worst" possible flashback right when you needed them the most, and that just made everything that happened more impactful. This was particularly true of the flashback to Teddy's birth (which was the point where I had to give up reading it in the coffee shop), but there were quite a few others that were equally gripping. I cried a lot in this book.
There was also an amazing moment where I realized that Mia had begun to think of her family in past tense, and it nearly destroyed me.
The bits and pieces with various nurses and doctors were fascinating to watch (or watch Mia watch), but the truly amazing sections were the flashbacks to her life with her family and their choices to date. (I just had a horrible vision of this book being forced on highschoolers and them having to talk about the themes of "choice" and what have you, and it ruining the book, but I am trying not to think about that right now.) Her family was so normal. Everything about her was normal. And she gets to the point where she has to pick her headline: "Family killed" or "Local girl only survivor", and just when you think she has, she hasn't.
(I've just realized something: this book will never be read in schools on account of the swearing. That makes me feel better.)
This book wanders around you all smiley and then punches you in the stomach. And it does it a lot. And I don't know why I kept falling for it, but I did. I think it's a mark of how well written it was. Because if nothing else, this book is hella well written.
10 out of 10. No questions. And I am reasonably sure it would still be 10 out of 10 if she'd chosen the other way.
m_stiefvater reminded me that the soft cover was coming out. Then I got paid and had to go to Chapters anyway, and I thought "I am going to buy 'if i stay'."You all need to go and get this book. Right now.
The front cover proudly asserts "will appeal to fans of Stephenie Meyer's TWILIGHT", and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Except they both take place in the Pacific Northwest. Seriously, that's it. Also, this book has one of the most amazing characters I've come across in a LONG TIME and that is SAYING SOMETHING.
I bought it at around 3 this afternoon, and then went to Second Cup, because it was
stephdub's last shift. I got to page 21 and realized that I couldn't read this book in the window of the store. I needed to sit in the back, where no one could see me tear up. About half way through, I realized that even that wasn't going to do it, and had to out it away entirely until I got home. And then it was this wondefully heartbreaking ride to the end. And then I had to put the book down because I was hyperventilating, and then I wept.So read this book. Have kleenex handy.
This book is entirely structure dependent, and I think the author built it amazingly well. Because you always got the "worst" possible flashback right when you needed them the most, and that just made everything that happened more impactful. This was particularly true of the flashback to Teddy's birth (which was the point where I had to give up reading it in the coffee shop), but there were quite a few others that were equally gripping. I cried a lot in this book.
There was also an amazing moment where I realized that Mia had begun to think of her family in past tense, and it nearly destroyed me.
The bits and pieces with various nurses and doctors were fascinating to watch (or watch Mia watch), but the truly amazing sections were the flashbacks to her life with her family and their choices to date. (I just had a horrible vision of this book being forced on highschoolers and them having to talk about the themes of "choice" and what have you, and it ruining the book, but I am trying not to think about that right now.) Her family was so normal. Everything about her was normal. And she gets to the point where she has to pick her headline: "Family killed" or "Local girl only survivor", and just when you think she has, she hasn't.
(I've just realized something: this book will never be read in schools on account of the swearing. That makes me feel better.)
This book wanders around you all smiley and then punches you in the stomach. And it does it a lot. And I don't know why I kept falling for it, but I did. I think it's a mark of how well written it was. Because if nothing else, this book is hella well written.
10 out of 10. No questions. And I am reasonably sure it would still be 10 out of 10 if she'd chosen the other way.
