Book
Cover:
Book
Title: If I Stay
Book
Summary:
One snowy
day the Hall family went for a drive, but sadly it did not end well. When Mia wakes up she is standing in the
middle of the crash site wondering why no one can hear her. Then we realize that she is a ghost and starts
following the firefighters around and realizes that her mom and dad have left
earth. She ends up at the hospital, and
starts to remember her life. Most of the
memories center around her boyfriend Adam, this is where the drama begins. To stay on earth or to leave and be with her
family, it is quite the internal battle that plays out. Her aunt and all her friends come and visit
but none has convinced her to stay.
Until Adam comes and tries to see her and fails on several attempts to
see her, it is not until the end of the book that he does get in and starts to
sing to her.
APA
Reference:
Forman,
G. (2009). If I Stay. New York , New York : Dutton Books.
If I Stay
is a book that any teenage girl would love, it deals with all the things that
we think of while dating a boy. The
added tension of trying to decide if life is worth living, which in my book it
always is, this is common teenage life. >
Professional
Review:
Horn Book Magazine
July/August, 2009
What begins as the gift of
a rare snow day in Portland, Oregon, turns suddenly into nightmare.
Seventeen-year-old Mia drives off with her family on the unexpected holiday. A
sudden explosion of metal, and Mia is looking at her dead parents sprawled on
the asphalt, her little brother nowhere to be found. An ambulance arrives to
take Mia's body, bristling with tubes, to a trauma unit, and incorporeal Mia
rides along. Distant kin to the dead narrators of The Lovely Bones et al., Mia
hovers somewhere between life and death, watching surgeons bustle around her
comatose body. An empathetic nurse clues Mia in that "she's running the
show" -- that the choice to live or die belongs to Mia. Forman's
one-sitting page-turner moves easily between the present vigil and Mia's past
as she considers the ultimate choice. A talented classical cellist, Mia is
deeply in love with punk-rock singer Adam, who has more in common musically
with Mia's formerly punk, effortlessly cool parents. As Mia holds out for
Adam's arrival at the hospital and considers the unbearable pain of living with
so much loss, her best friend Kim reminds her that she does have family -- all
the relatives and friends out there pulling for her. Apart from a heavy-handed
clunk or two ("I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard"),
the stakes are poignantly conveyed through Mia's vivid memories of a rich,
rewarding life.
Citation:
Adams, L. (2009, July-August). Gayle Forman: If I Stay. The
Horn Book Magazine, 85(4), 422+. Retrieved from
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA205360330&v=2.1&u=txshracd2679&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=e5296330a9a3b20e99b6bc33c8832113
Library
Uses: I would use this book to teach conflict
and resolution. This book is also good
to use to just connect with the teenagers to see what they are thinking and how
to help them solve problems in their own life.
