Before I Fall in 2017 Reading Challenge

May 12, 2013 Robin rated it liked it · review of another edition

"it's not what i imagined death would be like - not what i imagined would come afterward - but then again it's not like there's anyone around to tell you about it. - page 131

before i fall is like a cross between mean girls and groundhog day. it tells the tale of one girl's life and how she and her friends are the mean girls in high school. what is sad is it takes her dying to realize how horrible she was to almost everyone in her life. apparently she isnt quite ready to say goodbye yet, thou "it's not what i imagined death would be like - not what i imagined would come afterward - but then again it's not like there's anyone around to tell you about it. - page 131

before i fall is like a cross between mean girls and groundhog day. it tells the tale of one girl's life and how she and her friends are the mean girls in high school. what is sad is it takes her dying to realize how horrible she was to almost everyone in her life. apparently she isnt quite ready to say goodbye yet, though and she gets stuck in limbo reliving the last day of her life several more times. as she goes through the day she died several different times, she tries to make changes so that things happen in a better way or she tries to prevent other things from happening at all.

even before the accident i'm not sure that i was a whole person - that's what i am realizing now.-page 244

of course each time she changes one thing for the better, something else happens in its place. not always as bad as the previous time, but of course no matter what she does, everything isnt just plain perfect or how she wants. the end result is that she does make amends with almost everyone she wronged through each of the times and by the time she reaches the last day, she feels better about herself as a person. i think the messages of this story are to treat others how you would want to be treated, things happen as they do for a reason, and stop and appreciate all of the things you do have in life because all of it can disappear so easily. as she relives her last day each time, Sam does start to realize and appreciate everything in her life, feels badly about how she treated some people, tries to make amends with them, and tell the people who mattered to her how much they mean to her.

now it shouldnt surprise me since the delirium series also ended like this with an abrupt or leave it up to you to decide ending. once again i would have liked a little more story of what REALLY happened. obviously i know the main character dies. but did she really die as described the first time, meaning she was in the car with her friends and they also did hit the other girl, and did any of them also die or did everyone else survive? i mean in real life you cannot turn time back and change things for the better, so it is hard to believe everything happened differently as it did in one of the days she relived, but since technically this IS fiction, did she somehow manage to really make things happen so that she saves everyone else but herself? that part is so vague. i feel like she was given closure as she tries to make everything right, but at the same time, which person does everyone really remember? if she died the way it was described the first time, then i guess everyone still remembers her as the mean girl bitch. but if she did somehow make things better, i guess everyone realizes she changes and now they are left with good memories of her instead? hopefully that is the case, but that was kind of left for the reader to decide. overall, not a bad story. definitely a good read for anyone who was one of these mean brats (and i went to high school with a bunch of them, too) to get a dose of self-realization so they realize how horrible they are before it is too late.
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Feb 07, 2017 Annina | Blattzirkus rated it liked it

More reviews on my blog Blattzirkus :)

Plot
The story follows Samantha Kingston, a sixteen – soon to be – seventeen year old popular teenager who repeatedly has to life through Valentine’s Day. Or rather, she only realizes that she has to do so after dying in a car accident after a party held by a classmate. After that realization she lives through every repeatedly Valentine’s Day a little bit different, once more loving, once a little bit more obnoxious. By that, she not only finds out a lot abo More reviews on my blog Blattzirkus :)

Plot
The story follows Samantha Kingston, a sixteen – soon to be – seventeen year old popular teenager who repeatedly has to life through Valentine’s Day. Or rather, she only realizes that she has to do so after dying in a car accident after a party held by a classmate. After that realization she lives through every repeatedly Valentine’s Day a little bit different, once more loving, once a little bit more obnoxious. By that, she not only finds out a lot about her friends, classmates and family members but also a great deal of herself and what is really important in life.

My opinion
I guess that repeatedly waking up to the same day concept isn’t exactly new and can be executed equally in a good and in a bad way. Personally I am a bit torn with Before I Fall since I couldn’t stand the main character, Samantha. She was very obnoxious, self-centered and narrow-minded. I guess a typical sixteen year old popular teenager in the best stereotypical way. She has her four best friends who are equally as bad as her and a popular, handsome boyfriend who didn’t really care for her. That was soon very clear.

The good thing about Before I Fall was that there was change in the main character! She learned from herself and became a better, more caring person than at the beginning of the book. She wasn’t as narrow-minded as before and saw the more important things in life: being there for family and friends. Good for her! I really liked that she was going out of her comfort zone talking to people she normally wouldn’t and actually enjoyed doing so.

Also she tries to find out the reason why she was stuck in that time loop. And as we all know (more from ghost stories than from time loops), there is always unfinished business before one can rest. We just have to find out what it is. Therefore I can say that we learned a lot of the people in Samantha’s life. They weren’t just bystanders, but people with emotions and thoughts, not some kind of Extra Number 36 whose purpose only is to fill the empty place in the main character’s far too busy life.

The writing was decent, not too easy and not too hard, a nice Young Adult read. I have read Lauren Oliver before, the whole Delirium series actually, that’s how I discovered Before I Fall. Although I have no idea any longer how Delirium was written, for comparison reasons, but I guess it wasn’t too bad since I finished the whole series. Same with this one, the characters were annoying but the writing kept me going.

Conclusion
I give Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver 3 out of 5 stars because it was decent and a nice read, but that’s been it. I’m excited to see what the movie will make out of this material!

xo Annina ...more

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Aug 10, 2014 Nicole rated it liked it

I don't really know how to rate this book. It didn't wow me, nor did I hate it. I enjoyed some parts, other parts I found silly. But it's a book about high school girls, so I'm not sure what I expected. Overall, I don't think the writing was outstanding, but it wasn't awful either. I've read worse. The character I related to most, sadly, was Juliette. I always struggle to read books about popular girls because I can't relate, but I do it occasionally just to see what goes on inside their heads. ...more

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