Book Review: "If I Stay"

Reminder: I write spoilers. You've been warned.

I resisted reading this book for a long time because I was mad at it. Yes. Mad at the book. For existing. Because I came up with an idea for a book that I thought was genius: It's about a girl who got in this terrible accident, and her spirit is looking down on her unconcious body in the hospital, and she doesn't know what's happened to her, and we only find out the story behind why she's there through the conversations of the people who come to visit her, and her own memories come into play, and the end is learning what happened to her and whether or not she's going to live.

Great idea, right?

Well, Gayle Forman thought so, too. And she thought so first. Because not a month after I scribbled that idea in my idea notebook, I caught wind of "If I Stay."

There are differences. Mia knows what's happened to her, and her parents and her little brother. Her story isn't so much a circumstancial mystery as it is a story of whether or not she belongs. And that applies to everything. Does she belong with her boyfriend, in her family, pursuing her talent, and, in the end, alive?

Still, it's too similar for me to think about writing my story anymore. Which is sad.

And kudos to Forman. She is the second author in history to make me cry. (And the first was just a week ago, so I think I'm just hormonal right now or something.)

Anyway, the tears came when Mia is watching her grandfather visit her body. His speech killed me. Basically, all he says is that he wants her to stay alive, but that if it hurts too much to do so, he'll understand if she has to go.

Ugh. You'd have to be made of stone to not feel something as you read that.

The tears threatened to come again when Adam, Mia's boyfriend, says his speech at the end. Their relationships had hit a rocky patch before the accident that sent Mia to the hospital, and it seemed like a breakup was inevitable (this back story is one of Mia's memories). And then Adam says this: "If you stay, I'll do whatever you want. ... But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too. ... I can lose you like that if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you stay."

First of all, those could be lyrics to a song that would leave people weeping. Secondly, SIGH. A person who really loves another person would say something like that. Beautiful.

All of that aside, the only complaint I have about this book (besides the fact that it exists at all) is that whole music subplot. I get the gist of it, with Mia feeling like she doesn't fit in because she plays classical cello and everyone else in the book is into punk rock, including her parents. But at a certain point it's like, yeah, ok, Gayle Forman. We get it. You know the names of a lot of musicians. Good for you. Let's move on.

I recommend this for anyone looking for a read that's quick, yet heartfelt. And while I won't tell you if Mia decides to stay or not, I will tell you that Forman's writing a sequel, "Where She Went," to be published in 2011. So make of that what you will.