If I Stay

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

If I Stay by Gayle Forman. Dutton Juvenile, New York Ciry, 2009. ISBN: 978-0525421030

Summary

Seventeen year old Mia loves her life. She has a close-knit family, just had a great audition to get into Juilliard, and has a boyfriend, Adam, who is part of a successful band. Her life could go anywhere but instead, it ends up in limbo. A winter drive with her family results in a car crash, killing her parents, and greatly injuring her young brother, Teddy.  And Mia is separated from her body, forced to watch the tragedy around her without being able to do a thing.

As her body fights to survive in the hospital, Mia’s spirit remembers her life before--her  happy family, playing her cello, her dates with Adam.  She watches as her body is operated on, and nurses wait for condition to change. Mia’s grandparents, family, friends, and Adam all come to visit her in the hospital, each of them begging Mia to stay, to live, to hang on.  Now Mia must make a choice: to stay and to live, or to leave with her family in death.

Critical Evaluation

If I Stay is a very emotional read that deals with a difficult choice.  Forman does a nice job portraying Mia’s thought process and her emotional state of mind. It’s easy for the reader to sympathize for Mia, as she shows her unselfish love and grief for her parents and brother.

Another refreshing parts of the book is Mia and Adam’s relationship. While they are in love, they aren’t the perfect teen couple portrayed in so many romance books. They have their fights and struggles, and also realize that they are their own people that have to make their own choices: even if this means leaving the other behind.

The back and forth scenes between Mia’s present state and her life before can be a little confusing, but is necessary to understand the decision she must make. While If I Stay is a tearjerker, it is also a story of survival and  love—Mia’s love for her friends and family who want her to live, and for her family who has passed.  

Reader’s Annotation

To stay and live, or to join her family in death—this is the choice that seventeen year old Mia has to make.

About the Author

 “Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a journalist who specialized in reporting on young people and social-justice issues. Which is a fancy way of saying I reported on all the ways that young people get treated like crap—and overcome! I started out working for Seventeen magazine, writing the kinds of articles that people (i.e. adults) never believe that Seventeen ran (on everything from child soldiers in Sierra Leone to migrant teen farm workers in the U.S.). Later on, I became a freelance journalist, writing for magazines like Details, Jane, Glamour, The Nation, Elle, Budget Travel, and Cosmopolitan.  In 2002, I went traveling for a year around the world with my husband, Nick. I spent time hanging out with some pretty interesting people, a third sex (we’d probably call them transvestites here) in Tonga, Tolkien-obsessed, role-playing punks in Kazakhstan (bonus points to those of you who can find Kazakhstan on a map), working class hip-hop stars in Tanzania. The result of that year was my first book, a travel memoir called You Can’t Get There From Here: A Year On the Fringes of a Shrinking World. You can read about my trip and see pictures of it here.

What do you do when you get back home after traveling the globe for a whole year? First, you get disproportionately excited by the little comforts in life: Not having to look at a map to get everywhere? Yay! Being able to drink coffee without getting dressed and schlepping to a café first? Bliss! Then, if you’re 32 years old and have been with your husband for evah, you have a kid. Which we did. Presto, Willa! So, there I was. With a baby. And all of a sudden I couldn’t do the kind of gallivanty reporting I’d done before. Well, you know how they say in life when one door closes another opens? In my case, the door came clear off the frame. Because I discovered that I could take the most amazing journeys of my life without ever having to leave my desk. It was all in my head. In stories I could make up. And the people I wanted to take these fantastical journeys with, they all happened to be between the ages of 12 and 20. I don’t know why. These are just the people who beckon me. And I go where I’m told.

My first young-adult novel, Sisters in Sanity, was based on another one of those social justice articles I wrote when for Seventeen and you can click here to read the article. Sisters was published in 2007. My next book, If I Stay, was published in April of 2009 by Dutton. It is also being published in 30 countries around the world, which is surreal. The sequel/companion book to If I Stay, Where She Went, comes out in April 2011. I am currently working on a new YA novel, that is, when my kids (plural, after Willa we adopted Denbele from Ethiopia) allow me to. And after that book is finished, I’ll write another, and another….  Wow. This is crazy long. I suppose the short version of this bio could simply read: My name is Gayle Forman and I love to write young-adult novels. Because I do. So thank you for reading them. Because without you, it’d just be me. And the voices in my head.”

 (Gayle Forman.   Retrieved September 28^th, 2014  from https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/295178.Gayle_Forman)

Genres

Coming of Age

Contemporary  

Romance

Curriculum Ties

N/A

Booktalking Ideas

1: How big of a role does music play in Adam and Mia’s relationship?

2:  The definition of family in the novel: how it goes beyond blood relatives.

Reading Level/Interest Age

Ages 14+

Grades 9+

Challenge Issues

Language

Accident scenes

Defense File

1—Ensure that policies such as “Freedom to Read,” “Collection Development,” and “Challenged Materials” are available for patrons and staff to read and research. Have list of awards and reviews for titles, as well as a “Reconsideration Form” on hand at all branches.

2—Listen to challenges and complaints openly and without judgment. Allow the patron to express their thoughts without inputting your own.

3—Have patron fill out reconsideration form. Provide information and background on challenge material’s author and title.  Forward reconsideration form to appropriate supervisors.

PPLD’s Challenge Materials Policy: http://ppld.org/challenged-materials-policy

PPLD’s Collection Development Policy: http://ppld.org/collection-development-policy

Why included?

I included If I Stay, because it’s an emotional tear jerker of a read, and it’s very popular with our teen patrons and staff. I also chose the book because of the popular movie adaptation that came out this year.