Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

On a day that started like any other, Mia had everything: a loving family, a gorgeous, admiring boyfriend, and a bright future full of music and full of choices. In an instant, almost all of that is taken from her. Caught between life and death, between a happy past and an unknowable future, Mia spends one critical day contemplating the only decision she has left. It is the most important decision she'll ever make.

Simultaneously tragic and hopeful, this is a romantic, riveting, and ultimately uplifting story about memory, music, living, dying, loving.

Review: this is one of those books where I ask myself, why did it take me so long to read this? What a wonderfully quick read but one full of story and heart and feeling-I loved it! I read this book in a day, picking it up as I had to do other bits in the day and putting it down and then immediately ordered the next book in the series to match it because this is definitely a keeper! 

I really wasn't sure how I would feel reading this book because obviously I know that it surrounds a life-changing car crash and I was genuinely worried it was all going to end in tragedy. Now there is definitely a certain amount of tragedy in the novel, don't get me wrong, but it is peppered with sweet sweet flashbacks and gorgeous feels and a real strong sense of family and friendship. I found the structure a little difficult to deal with in the beginning because you really really want to find out what is going on with the car accident and the state of the family, but when you get into the flow of the book, you understand that all the flashbacks, you learn about Mia's past and these all contribute to her decision whether to stay or not...

I really liked Mia as a character, I thought she was definitely an old head on young shoulders, but I'd much prefer to read about a girl who knows what she wants and can make her own decision than one who is flapping and whining and winging all the time! I thought the decisions she made in her past as well as in her present were commendable and I really enjoyed reading about her. The other characters in the novel are definitely supporting characters, her family, her boyfriend, her best friend and her grandparents all play a part but this is a book very much lead by the protagonist and I really enjoyed that, it kept it very focused for me and really worked! 

Overall I thought this was a great read! It didn't take up much time but definitely made an impact on me as a reader. It had heart and feeling and you genuinely didn't know how it was going to end until the very last sentence. If I don't ever get to see the film I will still be happy that I've read the book and I hope that the film does the book justice because this really is a wonderful author and someone who I hope I can read a lot more from!