Review: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Dear Blog,

I finished Before I Fall  (Only the 2nd book on my 2010 Debut Author Challenge list that I've read) last night so as ever I have a review.
You may or may not have noticed that my blog background has dissapeared.  This is something to do with the website, but I hope by the weekend my blog will be restored to its normalness. 


Summary (from Goodreads): What if you had only one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?
Samantha Kingston has it all—looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12th should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it’s her last. The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. In fact, she re-lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she had ever imagined.


Review: I disagree with the Jay Asher quote on the front cover: "You'll have no choice but to tear through this book".  To my mind, this is the sort of book you have to read slowly; savouring every single word and really dragging it out so that it never ends.  Why rush through this book and then finish it, just like that? Yes, I read Before I Fall reeeally sloooowly, like when you only have a few bites of chocolate cake and want to make them last as long as possible.  Mind you, when I say "really slowly," I mean four days, and my mother is still reading the same book that she was reading in May. 


It seems that in lots of reviews of Before I Fall, people seem to dislike Sam.  Sometimes, quite a lot.  But I thought it was kind of nice to have a book from the point of view of one of the I've-got-it-all, popular crowd type-people instead of one of the outsiders who can only watch on while the in-crowd go to parties and date jocks and all that.  And, well, although every cliché  is based behind some truth, Sam wasn't like that.  And as for her being mean, although I found Sam really likeable, because, well, if somebody goes on the awesome emotional journey of sorts that Sam experiences by way of living through the last day of their life 7 times, it's hard not to completely love them.  It was her friend, Lindsay, who I wasn't really keen on, as the plot went further and further along and we found out more about her secrets, then I couldn't help but start disliking her more and more.  And yet I felt sort of sorry for her at the same time.  Such is the emotional torment that is Before I Fall, and  by the end I still hadn't made up my mind on how much I really liked her.


And Juliet.  Even though the reader didn't find out more and more about her until about half-way through the book, she is an excellent, excellent character;  complex, disturbed, quiet, terrible, fascinating and slightly creepy.  A companion novel or sequel of some sort that goes further into her complicated character would be somewhat awesome, although it would be kind of hard to fit that around Before I Fall; it couldn't just tell the same story from the point of view of another person.  Anyway, Juliet was to my mind the most interesting person in the book.


I supposed at first that it must be hard to write about the same day seven times over.  But this book makes you realise how many possibilities there are for events in each day.  Who knows, everything could be completely different.
It makes you think a lot about this sort of thing; how one person's actions can completely alter everything.  It also makes you wander what you would do if you had to live the same day over and over, and what you would do to change things.  In which sense, it's a very philosophical book. 


So, well, plot?  Does this book have a plot?  A girl dies in a car crash and lives through it seven times.  It's sort of hard to describe the book in that sense, but Sam learns so much along the way, then it feels like a journey of sorts. Even if it's just to The Country's Best Yogurt, school and a party.  It was an emotional journey, I suppose.


One thing: This is one of those books where they released it in the UK, changed the cover slightly (got rid of the Jay Asher quote and changed the font) and didn't bother changing certain words to the British spelling. As you may or may not know, I feel like screaming whenever there's a spelling mistake that the editor missed, and though having it published with some slight differences to the spelling here and there because it was first published across the pond, is no excuse.  Perhaps this is just me being a grammar freak, maybe not, but it bothers me.


And, well, to conclude with a new conclusion system:


In three words: thought-provoking, funny, and heartbreaking.
Reccomended for: teenagers and adults everywhere.
Rating: 5.

Review: If I Stay

Dear Blog,
Today I shall be rambling about If I Stay by Gayle Forman.  It is the most purest of awesome.

Summary (from Amazon.co.uk): Everybody has to make choices. Some might break you. For seventeen-year-old Mia, surrounded by a wonderful family, friends and a gorgeous boyfriend decisions might seem tough, but they're all about a future full of music and love, a future that's brimming with hope. But life can change in an instant. A cold February morning ...a snowy road ...and suddenly all of Mia's choices are gone. Except one. As alone as she'll ever be, Mia must make the most difficult choice of all. Gripping, heartrending and ultimately life-affirming, "If I Stay" will make you appreciate all that you have, all that you've lost - and all that might be.

Review: first things first.  This book is way too short.  I guess the short-ness is sort of fitting to the book, but it's one of those books you read reeeeeeeally sloooooowly so it doesn't end *wants sequel*.
The blurb gives away very little.  I mean, you know some sort of devastating accident happens.  But what exactly?  Maybe it's just me being thick but the blurb made me wander, "hmmm..."

It's a mix of Michael Morpurgo's Cool! (but for teenagers), because of the whole car-crash-coma theme and Elsewhere  by Gabrielle Zevin, because of the out-of-my-body-watching-my-nearest-and-dearest theme.  So I suppose it's probably similar to The Lovely Bones in that sense. But I wouldn't really know, because I've not read the book or seen the film (except the trailer).
Despite these many books I suppose you might compare If I Stay to, it feels wonderfully original.  And I think it's both better than Cool! and Elsewhere because it's longer than Cool and more happens than in Elsewhere.

The story is alive with music.  Mia, the protagonist, is a cello player, and her boyfriend Adam plays in an indie-rock band.  A reviewer on Amazon.co.uk said something along the lines of, "it was like reading a song," and I completely agree.   The writing is flowing and poetic and clear and realistic.  I felt like I too was stood with Mia, drifting around the hospital.

It's strange how in books like this one where there are flashbacks to the protagonists' old life, sometimes they can be fascinating and sometimes you can just think, "um, I just realised I don't care." .  I mean, we didn't buy If I Stay to read about  Mia's pre-accident life.  It's like the salad at the side of your plate.  Pleasant enough but not as good as your chips/meatballs/chicken/whatever that you originally wanted.  More often than not, we don't even eat the salad, save maybe the tomatoes and a few slices of cucumber. 
Before this gets too dragged down with metaphors, what I mean to say is: such talk about your past life is entertaining but not the highlight of the story.  But in If I Stay, it's just as fascinating as the main plot itself.

And the characters themselves?  Well, because of what happened to Mia's immediate family at the beginning of the book, I didn't feel like I knew them very well.  Her parents used to be punk rockers, I knew that much.  And now (or then I should say) her father wore bow ties.  But apart from that, they remained somewhat myserious.
Adam seemed like a cool-enough character.  I liked his relationship with Mia: it seemed nice without being too-good-to-be-true: not perfect because they both kept getting distracted by their music.  If ever I have a boyfriend, I should like to have the same relationship as Adam did with Mia.  Only minus the music-will-keep-us-apart element.  Anyway, enough of my daydreams.

Summary: short, but so veeeeeery good.  Probably my favourite of the books I've read while writing this blog (The Princess and the Captain doesn't  count because I first read it 3 years ago).  As good as Jinx, but I can't compare them.  Only that: they both deal with some pretty heavy issues.  So, yes.  If you haven't already, PLEASE READ IT NOW.  I think they should make it be slightly compulsory reading at school *nods*.
Rating: 5/5.

Review: Elsewhere

Dear Blog,

It's been a couple of days since I did a review.  Oops. Well, I'm back with a review of Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin, which I've literally just finished.  It's a reasonably short review, but is there such a thing as reviewer's block?  If there is, I think I may have it.

Summary (from the blurb): When Liz is killed in a hit-and-run accidente her "life" takes a very unexpected turn.  At nearly sixteen she knows she will never get married, never have children, and perhaps never fall in love. But in Elsewhere all things carry on almost as they did on earth except that the inhabitants get younger, new relationships are formed and old ones, which had been sadly interupted, are renewed. 

Review: First things first- it is true that "books narrated from beyond the grave are fast losing their novelty", in a quote from the Sunday Telegraph.  But, well, this isn't narrated directly from beyond the grave.  It's told in a spare, simplistic third-person present tense that reminds me a little of Exodus by Julie Bertagna.  Elsewhere is a sort of  Lovely Bones meets Benjamin Button novel.    Because in the afterlife you can't exactly grow old and die, you get younger and younger until you're seven days old, when you're sent downriver and back to Earth to be born again.  It's a wonderful idea.

I'm not quite sure what to make of Liz.  By half-way into the book I wanted to yell, "you're dead, get over it!" (I just re-read that and realised how hilarious that sounded) But I don't know how I would react if that happened to me.  Who knows, I could be as whiny and depressed as she was.  I do hope not.   Anyway, the third-person-present-tense narration didn't really seem to get inside her head, as if it truly was being told by somebody watching from a distance.  It didn't really explore her -or any of the characters, really-in depth. 

The other trouble with this book is that after a while Elsewhere (the place I mean) sort of loses its novelty.  The beginning of this book was good, and the last 50 pages or so were good as well (when the plot really picked up).  But there was a big space in the middle of the book where there was nought but...words.  And they weren't very exciting words, either.  Because Elsewhere is so like Earth, apart from the one obvious difference (one is reality and one is the afterlife), it sort of loses its, "wow!  This is the afterlife!" feel. And when Liz (eventually) gets used to it, nothing happens until the end.  BUT it's well worth reading to the end because your efforts shall be rewarded and ultimately you shall be a better person for reading it.  It's one of those books you finish a little wiser than when you started. 

Summary:  I would probably read Zevin's other book, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac.  If only because I'm drawn in by the plot.  It was an original idea and worth the read, but don't expect it to be as fantastic as the two pages of critical acclaim would lead you to believe. 
Rating: 3.25