Book Talk: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Sum it up: Told primarily through flashbacks, If I Stay takes place in the wake of a car accident that kills Mia’s entirely family and leaves her in a coma. She could still wake up, but the question is, does she want to?

Thoughts: Okay. I know what you’re thinking. I thought it too. If I Stay could so easily be a book that rests on the depressing nature of its premise. You instantly picture a lot of “Oh, what’s the point of even going on?” set to a soundtrack of Dashboard Confessional.

Do people still know who Dashboard Confessional is anymore, even?

Anyway. The book could have easily become mired in a kind of sad sentimentality, creating a shallow experience, but If I Stay manages to avoid this pitfall at every turn. Gayle Forman uses flashbacks to masterfully pull the heartstrings by focusing on the good things in life rather than the bad, providing a contrast that has you smiling only to one minute later be crushed by the reality of the situation.

And if you’re like me you’re also wondering how you write an entire book based on this one question with a character unable to interact with anyone around her. Forman does it. I’ll say something else, too: she does it in the perfect amount of words. I was skeptical about being able to carry this point for its 250+ pages and figured it’d end up getting tiring more than anything else.

But I cracked open the book to read a few pages and ended up reading the entire thing in one sitting. So, there you have it.

I know at this point I’m gushing, so let me wrap up by saying: read this book. Does it fumble once in a while? Sure. There are one or two scenes I can think of that felt a little forced, but at its core the book is solid. It’s more than solid, and whatever missteps it took were brief and quickly corrected.

If you liked this book: Despite an entirely different subject matter, the book that most reminds me of If I Stay would have to be Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins, because they both have strong characters and a lot of heart.