If I Stay

Foreman, G. (2009). If I stay. New York: Penguin Group.

Foreman’s New York Times bestselling book shares a tragic event in the life of high school student Mia Hall. Mia’s life changes in an instant. She is the only survivor following her family’s car accident, and she finds herself in a state between life and death. She is in a comma in ICU. She can see herself lying in the hospital bed, see and hear everyone around her and attempts to communicate. Mia’s story is told through her eyes in a series of alternating flashes of events from present and past. Before the incident, Mia was a talented cellist with dreams of attending Juilliard. She had fallen madly in love for the first time with rock band singer Adam Wilde. She was living a typical teenager’s life attempting to balance her time between school, her boyfriend, her best friend Kim and prepare for life after high school. Now she is faced with the challenge of discovering the truths of her incident and the choice between life or death. Against the odds, Mia wakes up. She chooses life, but she is not the same person as before. She is left struggling to recover physical and emotionally, so she decides to leave her old life behind. If I Stay is a heart-wrenching story of life, family, love and the tragic reality of life as you know it changing in an instant. It is a fast-paced quick read that will leave you wanting more. To find out what happens next read the sequel Where She Went.