Review: If I Stay, Gayle Forman

If I Stay -- Gayle Forman -- 3.5

Yesterday, I noticed that this YA book was due back to the library in a day or two and decided to give it a try rather than returning it unread (which happens, um, rather a lot, especially during semester-time). I think I saw it on somebody's year-end book recommendation list from a year or two ago, maybe...? Anyway. It was a quick read -- I finished it in one day and I didn't even have to be super-neglectful of my family or my duties to do so. I found it engaging and I wanted to find out what happened, which is always a good sign, though it was irritating from time to time.  Example: why is it that so many authors who like punk music find it necessary to fill their novels with tedious bits and pieces about punk bands? Nothing like reading a novel that feels like a stack of inside jokes when you're outside them. (PAGING AUDREY NIFFENEGGER.) And since the entire premise of the book involved a girl having an out-of-body ghostlike experience after a car accident, it sounds bad to say that I wasn't very into the whole out-of-body ghostlike experience thing -- but even so, the story does a decent job of overcoming its shortcomings and delivering a readable, philosophical, reasonably suspenseful few hours inside someone else's head.

Project 365 - day 1 - bare

day 1 - bare tree, a photo by Mrs Rachel on Flickr.

I had the rare pleasure of a long walk today. (I need to make this pleasure LESS rare, for a number of important reasons.)

This time of year, the gnarled oak trees are especially impressively gnarled because they've lost their leaves. This is one that greets you as you start up a bit of steep hill. Hello, tree.

And is it just me or do naked trees look like an artist's interpretation of a cardiovascular system?