When I chose to read If I Stay By Gayle Forman, I expected to read a story that would be sad. After reading this book, my expectations were met. This book was the perfect mixture of sad moments mixed with happy memories of the main character, Mia, and her friends and family. Though I didn’t quite get connected to the main characters as much I expected, I still thought the book was amazing. It had everything I would want in a book including an interesting perspective, flashbacks, and a good theme. 

The book starts off the morning before Mia's accident. It gives little backstory about her life, including that she lives in Oregon, where there typically doesn’t snow that much. On this particular morning, it snowed a little bit and her school had been canceled. Her family planned to visit some friends, since their prior plans got canceled. On their way, they got into an accident. Mia wakes up and tries to find her family, and she finds herself. She made it to the hospital and she was still outside of her body. The plot of the book makes the reader wonder and want to keep reading. Throughout the book Mia thinks back about her life and listens to people around her, and is making the ultimate decision of whether or not she stays. 

Something that I loved about this book is the perspective that it took place in. It was very interesting how Mia was outside of her body for the majority of the book, but I think it helped provide very valuable information that wouldn’t have been able to be included if she was inside of her body. This allows the reader to understand more about what went on while she was in her coma, not only where her body was, but through the hospital since she could leave her body and go see all the people that were there for her. I think that without this perspective, it would have been harder to understand her final decision. 

I also loved the way the author included many flashbacks onto Mia’s life. For example, the author included flashbacks into Mia’s life, about drama and family issues that would influence her final decision. She included flashbacks to her and her boyfriend’s fights and happy memories with her family. It helped provide information about Mia and her relationship with her friends and family that was very valuable to the story line. Since the book started off quickly and there wasn’t much background on her life before she had her accident, the flashbacks onto her life helped the reader to better understand her life and why she had been trying to decide if she wanted to stay or go and why she made the decision that she did. 

Another thing that I liked about this book was the theme that it ultimately provided to the reader. I think that the theme in this book is life and death. Mia is constantly debating between living and dying. She ultimately thinks that dying would be best, but she wants to live for her family and friends. I think this book really just shows you to be thankful for life and to not take advantage of it because it can change so quickly. 

One thing that I wasn’t a huge fan of was the ending. I wish it would've had a little more to it. I would have liked for the author to include Mia’s friends and family’s reactions to what happened at the end. I feel like it ended abruptly. It wasn’t horrible but I just think it could have been better. 

Overall, I am glad I read this book and I think most people would be glad to read it as well. I think that teenage girls would probably like this book the most since the book’s narrator is a teenage girl. It makes her experiences very relatable. The book was very hard to put down and made me want to keep reading and I think that many other people reading this book would feel the same way.