This book review was originally posted on The Wordy Nerd Books on August 10, 2014.

Mia is a seventeen year old musician with her whole life ahead of her.  She has just auditioned for a place at Juilliard.  Everything seems to be falling into place for Mia until one February morning when her entire family is killed in a tragic car accident.  Mia is the only survivor.  If I Stay by Gayle Forman follows Mia’s conscience as she makes the decision to either stay alive or pass on with the rest of her family.

I’m a bit late to this bandwagon but with the movie version coming out in mid-August I thought I should go ahead and read this one.  The premise of this story is that we have a choice.  Mia could have chosen to either live or die.  This decision is one that really forces the reader to think and to consider that choice.

Overall, the book is well written and the characters are very relate-able.  The ending to this book is a bit abrupt, however.  It leaves the reader wanting to find out more about the ending and what happens next.  Thankfully, Forman did write a sequel called Where She Went which I hope to read soon.

As I mentioned earlier, this book has been made into a movie and will be released on August 22.  You can find out more about the movie and watch the trailer here.

Overall, I liked this book and gave it four stars.  I think that young adult readers will enjoy this book and I plan to recommend it to my high school students this fall.