If I Stay by Gayle Forman

What is the one thing that always makes you happy? In my case it is music, I purchase music once a week (Yes, I purchase all my music because I can’t bring myself to download illegally). I am definitely grateful for iTunes’s $0.69 deals! I was pleasantly surprised when I found If I Stay because of the significance music has throughout the story. I have to admit that that I was scared to read these books. I read some reviews and I didn’t want to read such a depressing book. I thought I would be weeping throughout the entire story, but there were only a few scenes that made me cry like a baby. Anyway, I really enjoyed Forman’s writing, she can definitely evoke emotions.

If I Stay

Mia lives with a great family, her parents are cool and her little brother is sweet. Mia loves to play the cello and practices almost 8 hours a day, so it’s interesting to see her relationship evolve with Adam. Adam the rocker and Mia the classical musician. They have a sweet, loyal, and honest love for one another. Adam becomes the third child in Mia’s family household. He spends a lot of time with Mia at home and they enjoy every single moment they are together. One of My favorite moments in the book is of Mia and Adam alone in her room and Adam asks Mia to “play” him (You’ll have to read the book to see what I am talking about). You will enjoy it as much as I did. Trust me.

But it’s just as they say, we can’t have it all. We always have to choose, we can never have the best of both worlds. When Mia and her family are involved in a fatal car accident her life turns upside down. Mia has an out-of-body experience and sees everything that happens to her parents and her brother. She sees everything that happens to her while she is in the hospital. Mia understands that she has to make the choice to stay or leave – it’s difficult for her to decide when she sees the people that wish for her to stay. This is when my second favorite moment happens; Mia realizes what happened to her family and I was expecting a chaotic reaction, but instead it was the opposite and somehow that silence portrayed the pain. Ultimately Adam and music helped Mia to make the choice between life and death.