If I Stay

Author: Gayle Forman
Published: 2009, Dutton
199 pages

In honor of my cousin Jaclyn, who recently asked for a book recommendation in her Facebook status because apparently I don't give enough positive reviews in this blog, I am doing a week-long series of posts about books that I do recommend.  Don't worry, everybody, I have an arsenal of recommendations up my sleeve; I've just been holding back to keep you all on your toes.  The time has come, though, and I begin with this sweet, easy read by Gayle Forman.

This book is written from the first-person perspective of 17-year-old Mia.  On a snow day, she and her very tight-knit family (Mom, Dad, brother Teddy) decide to take a little road trip that ends in a fatal accident for everyone in the family but Mia.  For the majority of the book, Mia is in a coma but her conscious self is wandering around the hospital, watching her remaining family, friends, and doctors and nurses handle the situation.

The narration alternates between stories of Mia's almost-perfect former family life and her current state of watching herself struggle to hold onto life on a hospital bed.  At some point, she realizes that she has the power to decide whether she "stays" or dies (hence the title: "If I Stay").  Mia goes back and forth between not wanting to continue living because she doesn't want to be an orphan and also because it is "easier to die" and wanting to continue living because she has so many close loved ones (including an amazing, but still believable, boyfriend as well as a great best friend) and life ahead of her.

Mia's family is quirky and totally lovable and believable.  Her parents are former punk rockers who give her a lot of freedom and a lot of love.  Her boyfriend is a punk rocker, too, and they have a great (but not too-perfect; they have many real-life relationship conflicts) relationship that I really appreciated.  In the stories sprinkled throughout the narrative, Mia describes her perception of her place among all these characters, and the picture Forman paints is both honest and realistic.  Mia doesn't feel like she totally fits in because she's a concert cellist and all her loved ones play rock instruments.  She's not part of the popular crowd in school, but she's fine having just one really good friend.  In the end, she is weighing her options and trying to figure out if she has a place in a world without her immediate family.

Forman raises some interesting questions about life and death, but she also raises some good questions about family.  Is your family limited to the one you're born into, or can it also include the people you've chosen to surround yourself with?  Who are you without your family?  Do you have the same identity if the people who have known you the longest are suddenly gone?

Mia's family reminded me of my own freakishly close family, and maybe that's what I liked about this book so much.  I don't know who I'd be without my crazy family, even if they do sometimes insult me by looking elsewhere for book recommendations.