Thursday 24 March 2011

Five Reasons I love Gayle Formans If I Stay and can't wait for Where She Went



Two years ago, way back in the year of 2009 I went into a book store looking desperately for something new to read. Stumbling through the shelves, as I’ve always focused more on reading than on developing any kind of co-ordination, I happened across a book titled If I Stay. It had a very pretty cover, an interesting blurb and a fascinating title. And even though I had practically no money at that moment in time I bought it. And that, turned out to be one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

Since then I’ve read If I Stay more than ten times and would say without hesitation or reservation it is my favourite book. It’s the book I refer people to when they ask for a suggestion and so far no-one who’s read it had ever come back to tell me anything aside from that they loved it. I’m someone who is overly pedantic about the appearance of my books, they can’t be dog eared, creased or in any way damaged. And logically you would therefore assume that being my favourite book would mean it’s pristine. I take it the other way. The fact that it’s been handled read and hugged to me so many times, that it’s been cried on, thrown across the room in despair (Okay, that one’s a little bit of an exaggeration. Throwing books is bad.) and sighed into means my copy is very worn and you can tell it’s much loved.
If you haven’t read this book, STOP whatever you’re currently doing and race out to your nearest book store, library or anywhere else you know you’ll find it. Even if that involves breaking into your neighbours house do it. You won’t regret it. Well, if you break into to your neighbour’s house and get caught you might but that’s beside the point.
So now here are my top five reasons why I love Gayle Forman’s If I Stay (I could make this list much longer, really it could go on forever but I didn’t think my rabbiting on forever was a very appealing read):
                1.Out of all the books I’ve ever read, and you can safely assume that as someone who’s attempting to start a book blog that I read A LOT, If I Stay is the only one that has ever made me cry. I never cried while watching the movie Titanic but I was bawling while reading this book. And I love a good cry. This is a book that brought up so much emotion as to make someone whose twitter name is cynicallaura cry.
                2. Adam. It’s that simple. One word, or a name really, Adam. I have masses of book crushes, whole lists of them, but he’s my favourite, the one I fell for. And even though I’m in love with him, I wouldn’t want him to be with anyone but Mia which leads me to my next point:
                3. The most perfectly imperfect relationships. All the relationships in the books are real. None are perfect they have their flaws which makes them believable, brings them to life, it’s something that is missing from far too many books. In If I Stay, Mia talks specifically about how her and Adam got off to a rough start, we’re told about how Mia’s mother’s and her parents didn’t get along and then we’re shown how her father and his parents interact. It’s this aspect of the book then being torn apart that was part of the reason I cried.
                4. There are no vampires, werewolves, shadowhunters (I’m looking at you Jace Wayland), fairies, angels, demons or spies. I’m not saying I don’t love all those things in books, because I do. Seriously, most of the books I read involve at least one of those aspects as I’m a deep lover of the paranormal, supernatural, fantasy genre. It’s pretty much all I read. If anyone needs evidence of this, comment that you’d like to see a pic of my shelves and I can show you exactly how many of these books I have. That’s why If I Stay was so refreshing. It was different. And it was deep. And the protagonist and her one true love weren’t on a trip to save the world/themselves/a herd of baby unicorns.
                5. It didn’t need a sequel. I’m overjoyed that one is coming out, I screamed when I found out, but it wasn’t necessary. Almost all the books I buy and read leave me unsatisfied. Not due to the fact they’re bad, but because they leave me hanging, waiting months on end to find out what happened next. When I read If I Stay I wasn’t expecting another book and while I would’ve killed to know what happened to Mia and Adam from the point the book ends, it was oddly peaceful to have had it end that way.
And before I start talking about my delight when I heard about Where She Went I can’t resist adding a number six to this list.
                6. It has that sexiest non-sex sex scene I have ever read. If you’ve read the book you’ll know what I mean. But, WOW! That scene is hot. I never thought musical instruments could seem so sexy.
Okay, now for those who don’t know, in little over a weeks time the sequel to If I Stay will be released. This book is called Where She Went and has been called a continuation of the Mia-Adam story. When I found out about this book I literally squealed, something I pride myself on not doing very often. I looked up everything I could about it and began regularly checking (*cough*stalking*cough*) Gayle Forman’s website, twitter and blog frequently and here are some things I found you may have missed.  Here you can find the ‘teaser tour’ on Gayle Formans blog along with a small excerpt and other bits and pieces. Here you can find the book trailer (and OMG is that boys voice sexy!) and another longer excerpt as well as other general information.

As soon as I’ve got the book in my hands and have read it I’ll post my review! I'm so incredibly jealous of all the people who've already read this book. If anyone feels the need to express how excited you are for this book please comment I’d love to discuss it with you!
Laura
Next on the blog: My review of both Demons Lexicon and Demons Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan.

2 comments:

  1. Hey! I'm your newest follower! :) I love this post because I agree with everything you said (well, apart from the fact that I end up crying in quite a few books) but also, I think Gayle Forman is amazing and brilliant and her books are just amazing and brilliant :)

    Welcome to the blogosphere!
    ~Audrey

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  2. Thanks so much Audrey! This morning I woke up and not only had a follower but my attempts to read Where She Went on NetGalley had also been approved! So lots of excited squealing took place and am now going to read it!

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