If I Stay

If I Stay - Gayle Forman This is a beautifully written, achingly sad and at the same time wonderful book. I picked it up not expecting to like it, it sound very depressing and I couldn't imagine being interested in reading a book about a girl that is sort of "in between," deciding where to live or die. The accident is horrific and it was difficult to read, but also very well done. The rest of the novel could definitely have been all sorts of a maudlin sob fest, but it wasn't. To echo what others have said it was a meditation on grief, loss, and love. I devoured this book, I started it in the afternoon and finished in the same evening.

I read another review somewhere saying that it was a character book but that it had little plot. I would disagree the plot was the characters and vice versa.

I loved this book. It made me cry and it made me happy. It sent me to a world with the kind of family and with kinds of love that maybe can only exist in fiction. At the end of the day that is why we read books; to believe in someone else that doesn't exist, or some other kind of reality a little sweeter and maybe a little sadder than our own.