Book Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman
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Gayle Forman is a brilliant writer. They say that easy reading is hard to write and If I Stay was a very easy read. Told in a first person narrative by Mia, a seventeen-year-old high school senior and a gifted cellist, the news comes through that schools are closed for a snow day so Mia, her parents and her little brother plan a busy day out visiting friends, family and stores. They never even make it to their first stop on the itinerary though because a truck slams into their car.
Her parents die instantly and the scene Forman writes describing the aftermath of the crash is so visceral that I was nervous getting in a car afterwards. Seeing their lifeless bodies, Mia can’t bring herself to look for her little brother and instead stumbles across her own. Except she isn’t dead. She’s badly injured and for the rest of the book has an out-of-body experience watching the doctors and nurses trying to save her and her friends and family in the hospital waiting room coping with their loss and praying there won’t be any more.
I’ll admit that I hated this device because it’s the sort of thing that writers do to get around the fact that Mia would actually be unconscious and unaware of everything going on around her as she fights for life but are so desperate to write in the first person that they’ll defy logic if that makes it happen. But if you can get over it (and I did), you’ll be treated to a lovely character study. Mia’s parents, her boyfriend, her friends, just about all people she knows are way more cool than she is. Instead, she’s calm and it’s a nice change for a young adult novel. So many of them are full of crying and yelling and typical teenagers who think average grades, relationship breakdowns and parents who want the best for them are the end of the world. Mia actually is facing the end of her world and her composed consideration of that is refreshing.
Surprisingly for a book of such depth, the story takes place over just twenty-four hours (not including the flashbacks that are about half of the book). It’s not a plot driven novel so don’t expect anything to “happen”, especially not when you come to the ending. Of course, the fact that there’s a sequel does kind of give it away.
The book is full of musical references and it reminded me of Will Grayson, Will Grayson in that respect. Some of the music I knew but most of it I didn’t and it takes something away from the reading experience when that is the case. It’s like there’s an inside joke that you aren’t lucky enough to be in on. Save it for the movies, I say.
I don’t really know why but I’m not inclined to read the sequel. Even though there was a device that I didn’t like and the unappreciated musical references, there’s enough perfection in this book for me not to want to ruin it with sloppy seconds as sequels so often are. And I say that knowing that the sequel is rated just as highly as the original. No doubt I’ll come around eventually. But for now I just want to have the experience of this book as a book on its own. And that is a worthy writing and reading experience.
In a word: elegant.
4 stars
*First published on Goodreads 12 January 2018
