If I Stay (If I Stay, #1), by Gayle Forman

If I Stay (If I Stay, #1), by Gayle Forman on Goodreads

Release Date: (Paperback) April 6th, 2010.
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Speak

Overall: 3 Monkeys
Categories: Romance, Drama, Contemporary

Challenge: 100 Books in a Year, 2011 Debut Author Challenge*
Read in June 2011

Summary from Goodreads:

In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces - to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heart-wrenchingly beautiful, Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time.

My Opinion:

I was really hoping to super-love this book, as everyone kept saying how much they'd cried with it and how much they loved it (I love to cry when reading a good book). But, sadly for me, this book didn't quite reach me as it did others. 

I found the storyline (almost-dead girl's spirit -?- walking down the hospital's halls, trying to figure out if living is worth it or if she should just let go) to be already used. Maybe it was because I'd recently watched a 2007 film (Awake) with Hayden Christensen, where his character is almost in the same place as Mia is. Only, Mia's story is much more dramatic, as opposed to Clay's (Hayden Christensen) where he does want to live but finds that people are trying to prevent that from happening. 

Anyway, it wasn't the story that gripped me, but the flashbacks that appear throughout the book, that tore at my heart. 

Cover of my edition.

When Mia tells us about her family (Isn't it nice to read about a whole family for a change? Well, until the accident, of course.), about how she and Adam became boyfriend and girlfriend, and about her best friend Kim and her many eccentricities, that was when I loved the book. 

Because those insights were completely functional to the plot, to make us feel things for the characters. And boy, did I feel them. 

In the end, I think Mia made a good choice. But I didn't like the way the book ended, it was way too open for an ending. I would have liked to see something else. 

We'll see how I like Where She Went, book 2! Apparently, it's told from Adam's POV. Oh, how I love a boy's POV in a book... *sigh*

*This book was released a couple of months ago in Argentina, making it a Debut in my country.