If I Stay - Gayle Forman

 Mia has a good life. Cool and caring parents, a little brother she loves, a sweet boyfriend who shares her love of music, the best friend a girl could ask for, and a promising future at Julliard. Mia's only problem is she always feels on the outside of everything. Her parents, little brother, and her boyfriend, Adam, are all rock musicians while she is an amazing cellist. Not only does her choice in music seem to separate her from her family, but she's also the dark haired one in a sea of blonde.

Then one day a surprise day off from work and school leads Mia and her family to spend the day together, but one moment changes it all when there is a terrible accident. Mia is soon on the outside of things once again when she finds herself in a type of limbo while staring down at her seriously injured body.

With her parents dead and her little brother unaccounted for, Mia stays with her body and ends up in the Intensive Care Unit and is eventually surrounded by family and friends. After hearing a nurse's comment to her grandparents, Mia realizes she must make the ultimate decision; to let death win or fight to stay alive. Should she stop fighting for her life and just give in so she can be with her parents and now her brother again, or is there still a life worth living with Adam and the rest of her family?

I'm really glad I didn't know too much about If I Stay before I started reading it. Why? I'm known to want to read sad books but put them off because I know they'll make me cry. Good thing I didn't do that with this book because there were three specific parts that had the tears flowing.

This was a fantastic book and beautifully written. The subject matter is pretty depressing, as death usually is, but beyond that there's Mia reminiscence of her parents and brother. You get to see how happy they were as a family and how involved they were with each others lives. I also couldn't help but wonder how many people who are broken, just like Mia, are waiting for that one person to tell them that it's okay for them to let go. Sometimes people can be so selfish when it comes to their loved ones that, unlike her gramps, just refuse to give the person the option of letting go. I don't know what it's like to be in a coma or at death's door, but I would imagine that just knowing that it's okay to stop fighting is a relief to the person, like it was for Mia.

I will definitely be recommending this book to others. I just hope that they will appreciate it as much as I did. I also hope that when the movie for If I Stay is made, that the book is done justice. I want to see how it's translated to film because it could be a beautiful, heart-wrenching, movie but I know no matter what, the movie will never compare to the original work.

Thank you Robin for getting this book for me!