Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Genre: Young Adult
Copyright: 2009
Pages: 470
Rating: 4 / 5
Synopsis:
What if you had only one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?
Samantha Kingston has it all—looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12th should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it’s her last. The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. In fact, she re-lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she had ever imagined.
Review:
Before I Fall is the kinda story that will stay with you for a long time after. Like most YA novels, this one is the story of Samantha Kings, a typical high school teen who has it all - the popular clique in school, the jockey boyfriend, and a happening life. And then it all ends one day in a tragic accident - only Samantha wakes up in the morning to realise she's reliving the same day all over again.
We see her going from denial to rebellion and anger and finally to acceptance of what should be over the seven times she relives the same day - and along the way she gains perspective on the people in her life, and tries to change things for the better.
You can picture the characters in this story real well, most probably cause we've all known some of them while growing up - the pretty girls, the football jocks, the wanna-bes, the nerds n geeks. Lauren's easy and free flowing writing makes it real easy to like this book and feel a part of it.
There were times i empathised with Sam, and times i wondered what the hell Sam was up to. I'm not sure i agreed with everything she did - even when she did apparently get it right. As much as i loved Sam and Kent together, for example, i wasn't happy with Sam's decision to change Kent's life the way she did. But that's the hallmark of a good book - it makes you think and debate.
As a YA, this one covers the usual sex, drugs and alcohol story..not to miss out peer pressure too. But it doesn't preach and, i think, handles these topics very well. The ending leaves you a bit surprised - i completely didn't expect it to happen that way. If you wanna know what i mean by that, you know what you have to do - go pick up this book. You won't be disappointed
2 comments:
Did you feel too, like I did, that peer pressure was almost a character in the book, that's how frequent it was? Sam is what it is in the beginning due to peer pressure, Lindsay has become what she is (and her friendship with Juliet has suffered) due to peer pressure and so on.
yup.. peer pressure definitely was a big player. For me the story was Sam having to let go of doing what she thought others would expect of her and just be herself and do what she thinks was right. The fight against peer pressure.
Lindsay and Juliet were prime example of peer pressure, that was real sad to read, because it probably happens a lot in real life.
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