Book Review: If I Stay

Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones. Stay true to her first love - music - even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind? Then, one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it's the only one that matters.

---

Word to the wise. Do not read this book while on family vacation, especially while your driving with your whole family in crazy LA traffic or waiting in line for rides at Disneyland. My overactive imagination was having a heyday. Not to mention people were staring at me while I was reading. I can only imagine what sort of crazy faces I was making.... 


Wow. If I Stay was definitely not what I expected it to be. Well it was but at the same time it wasn't. I'll try not to give anything away for people who haven't read the book, but lets just say the story turned out to be A LOT more tragic then I had originally thought it would be. While the story is quite sad, there were plenty of happy moments that helped keep the book out of total depression zone.

Mia has a choice. Stay, or go. It seems simple, but really its the hardest choice she has ever had to make. I loved the way the book would go back and forth from the past to the present. Between almost every story I would end up changing my mind about whether or not I wanted Mia to stay. I also loved how supportive everyone in her family was. Oftentimes teen novels portray parents and family members as annoying people who just "don't understand teenagers." Mia's family wasn't portrayed that way. They supported every decision Mia made in her life, music and future which I thought was awesome!

Kim was such an awesome best friend. She was understanding of Mia's feelings, but she was also able to push Mia to do things that were just outside of her comfort zone. Mia's boyfriend Adam was pretty much the best boyfriend ever. Adam loves everything about Mia. He doesn't care that she isn't a "rocker girl". He likes her just the way she is. I loved that. And I loved that he was always so reassuring about that fact. Mia would worry that he would like her better if she changed but he would always assure her that he loved HER for who she was. And then that final scene in the book??? SO PERFECT.

Overall If I Stay was a unique novel about love, loss, hope, and what it means to live. It was such an emotional rollercoaster and I can honestly say that I was tearing up during the last few pages! I honestly didn't know what Mia would choose but I liked her decision. It was perfect. The only drawback about this book was this one super awkward scene. I won't go into the details but it was between Adam and Mia and I just think the book would have been better without it. I give If I Stay 4 and a half out of 5 ice cream cones!

There's a sequel coming out to If I Stay in April!!! It's called Where She Went and I JUST found out that its from Adam's point of view! YESH! Now I can hardly wait for its release. You can find out more information on Where She Went here.

Julia :)