Mia has a loving family, the perfect boyfriend and a potential career full of her dreams and possibilities. But, with one unfortunate accident, her life had changed forever.
Teenagers have every possibility in the world; the character Mia in the book If I stay by Gayle Forman is a prime example.
The book is a New York Times bestseller and hit theaters on August 22. starring Chloe Grace Moretz as the main character.
On a gloomy, snowy day, Mia’s family decided to take a trip to their grandparent’s house when school was canceled. They were nearly there when a pickup truck, going 60 miles an hour, plowed into the side of their run-down vehicle.
Mia’s parents died instantly and her brother looked to be in critical state; but she couldn’t understand if she was alive or dead. She found herself standing in front of her body lying in a ditch next to the road with paramedics crowded around her.
Throughout the book, Mia is in a lucid state-of-mind, watching herself go through operation after operation with the rest of her family, friends, and boyfriend staying close by hoping that her life won’t be cut short.
Mia narrates the story as she goes through the process of trying to heal in the hospital. She takes readers through her past with frequent flashbacks of her life to explain to them what she had before the accident.
While narrating the past, she also questions why she is going through this difficult time and if she is really meant to stay.
Recent well-known reviews of the book from Entertainment Weekly and Sacramento Bee say that it is “beautifully written” and “throbs with love and tragedy.” Despite that being true, the book lacked some substance in the middle.
Her flashbacks were frequent, but too much so that the book had become somewhat dull and took away from some of her current situations.
On the other hand, the suspense with the love and tragedy of the story made the reader want to keep turning the pages to figure out if Mia decides to stay.
While Mia is going through the difficult decision, some of her immediate family is allowed to see her while she is stabilizing from her surgeries.
Her grandfather was one of the most heart-wrenching people to listen to when he came into talk to Mia. Unlike her other family members, he didn’t say she had to stay and to keep fighting. Instead he gave her the option of leaving even if it meant he would lose his granddaughter.
In the end of the book, Mia must make her decision on whether or not to stay or leave behind a world full of possibilities she hadn’t discovered yet. To see if she comes back, check out the book and see if the dramatic whirlpool will be worth the time and energy.
