before i fall
Lauren
Oliver
★★★★☆
They say that just before you die
your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that’s not how it happened for
me.
To be honest, I’d always thought the
whole final-moment, mental life scan-thing sounded pretty awful. Some things
are better left buried and forgotten, as my mom would say. I’d be happy to
forget all of fifth grade, for example (the glasses-and-pink-braces period),
and does anybody want to relive the first day of middle school? Add in all of
the boring family vacations, pointless algebra classes, period cramps, and bad
kisses I barely lived through the first time around……
The
truth is, though, I wouldn’t have minded reliving my greatest hits: when Rob
Cokran and I first hooked up in the middle of the dance floor at homecoming, so
everyone saw and knew we were together; when Lindsay, Elody, Ally, and I got
drunk and tried to make snow angels in May, leaving person-sized imprints in
Ally’s lawn; my sweet-sixteen party, when we set out a hundred tea lights and
danced on the table in the backyard; the time Lindsay and I pranked Clara Seuse
on Halloween, got chased by the cops, and laughed so hard we almost threw
up-the things I wanted to remember, the things I wanted to be remembered for.
Friday,
February 12 should just be another day in Samantha Kingston’s life. Samantha
Kingston has three amazing best friends and
first pick of everything at Thomas Jefferson High due to her popularity.
The last day she lives is spent skipping classes, hanging out with her best
friends, cheating on tests and partying her brains out. Then the crash happens,
and Samantha wakes up to find her alarm ringing- it’s February 12 all over
again. She relives the day she died seven times, unraveling the mystery behind
her untimely, purely coincidental death, and discovers the true value of
everything she will lose.
Before
I Fall is a heartbreaking, riveting story of one girl’s solo quest to redeem
herself and fix her death by saving a life. What makes it so good is how even
though it’s basically the same day repeated 7 times, it’s not boring or
repetitive. Each new day brings with it a new plot, and by the end it’s almost
unrecognizable. Also, the characters are
vividly real and the story brings up the question: ‘What would I change if I
died today?’. I would recommend this novel to readers of If I stay by Gayle
Forman. It’s beautiful, complex, emotional and ingeniously written.
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