This was a book club read. I have been overly critical of the last few
books we have read for book club because frankly, I did not care for them very
much. It was refreshing to finally have
a book that I did not have to struggle to get through. It was good enough to where I will probably
watch the movie when it comes out.
If I Stay is about Mia, who ends up in a
coma after a tragic accident that kills her entire family. While in her coma, Mia has to decide whether
to stay and live, or go and die with her family. To tell the story of Mia’s choice, the
chapter goes back and forth between present time, with Mia in the hospital, her
spirit or whatever watching everyone as they struggle with what happened to her
family, and the past, with Mia narrating her relationship with her parents, her
brother, and her boyfriend. In the
beginning, I was not sure that I would like the back and forth of the chapters
because it seemed that just as soon as I was into what was happening in the
present, the author would take me back a couple years or more and start telling
a different story. It frustrated me a
little at first, but eventually the narration of the past helped me to understand
the choice that Mia was making of whether to stay or die.
At book club, we talked about what a
difficult decision that would be. I have
no idea what I would choose. If my whole
family was gone, I am not sure I would want to stay. At the same time, I don’t particularly want
to die either. Weighing your reasons to
live versus your reasons to die is very difficult. I’ll admit I had very low expectations for
this book, but the things that it made me think about really impressed me.
The ending of the book came rather
abruptly. The way it ended left me
unfulfilled. I remember thinking, “That’s
it? That’s how it ends?” But there is a second book to read, so I
guess it had to end that way to entice readers to read the second book. We all know I’m a sucker and I will end up
reading the second book eventually.
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