Monday, April 12, 2010

If I Stay: A book that broke my heart, in the best possible way.

I love YA. I do. But it's been a long time since a book really got to me--made me stop and think or laugh and cry, made me feel something, long after I read the final pages. A couple of YA books have come close, but something didn't completely click. For whatever reason, I wasn't as sucked in as I wanted to be.

But then this weekend, I took the very good advice of Jodi Meadows and finally read a book that's been in my TBR pile for months: If I Stay, by Gayle Forman.

And can I just say ... Wow.

I don't know what took me so long to read it, but I'm glad I finally did. It's written in first person present tense, but it was so well done, I didn't even notice. By page 14, I was so devastated I wanted to put it down, or throw it against the wall, or something. But I couldn't. Because I couldn't stop reading long enough to do any of those things.

I can be a bit of a baby, I'll admit, but I haven't cried over a book since ... geez, maybe back in Nicholas Sparks' better days. But If I Stay didn't just make me cry over the characters; it made me think--about love, family, music, and loss. And while I was thinking, I bawled like a little girl.

It reminded me that those books, the ones that are powerful enough to stop and start your heart, they're still out there.

If you haven't read it yet, you should.

That is all.

5 comments:

Aubrie said...

I haven't read this book but it sounds really good. I love when a book can do that to you. The last book that did for me was "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's literary fiction. They are making it into a movie I believe.

Sarah Wylie said...

Well said. I loved If I Stay. I'm planning on rereading it soon.

Little Ms J said...

I can barely see over my TBR pile, but I shall add this to the group.

Good to see a post from you! I miss you when you're quiet!

lisa and laura said...

I read this on my flight to Austin last weekend. I cried on the plane and people looked at me. Yeah. It was really, really good. We're reading it for YA book club.

Now you need to read BEFORE I FALL.

Gabriela Pereira said...

Great post--I got my hands on an ARC of IF I STAY last fall and read it pretty much in one sitting. It is such a moving book and the way Forman uses music throughout as a sort of metaphor is just breath-taking.