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.
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