If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Title: If I Stay
Author: Gayle Forman
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 3 out of 5

Description: If I stay is about a teenager called Mia who goes for a drive on a winter day with her family and this drive has terrible consequences. Mia must make the biggest decision of her life without the help of anyone else.

Taken from Goodreads.

I read If I stay because I wanted to read it before the film release (I did manage this, unfortunately been a little busy back at university and haven't had the time to review any books). I had heard a lot of positive things about this book so I was really excited to read it.

Overall, I was underwhelmed by this book. I was bored. I thought about not even finishing the book at one point.

I didn't connect with Mia. I didn't really feel any real emotional connection with her and this caused me to not really feel emotional about this book at all.. I didn't feel sad at all about her situation and honestly had no care for how she ended up by the end of the book. When she found out someone else had died, I don't know if it was supposed to be shocking or saddening or whatever but I felt literally nothing. These memories Mia had weren't inspiring nor did they remind me of the little things in life either.. I was just disappointed by the writing.

I was also disappointed as I thought the book was going to be more about her decisions about living and dying but it was rather just a gathering of memories reminding her of happy and sometimes not so happy things. The fact that she could choose one way or another was always prominent but there was no real depth to it. There wasn't really any depth to anything; the story or the characters. There didn't really seem to be much of a story to me...

Nearer the end of the book, I got a little bit emotional and a couple of tears may have come out (however I cry so easily at anything so I don't take this to mean much). But then at the end of the book, Mia just came to a sudden conclusion to her decision and it didn't even feel important and it was just such a boring end!

It was an okay book. It's not something I would recommend and I don't think I'll be reading the sequel to this book 'Where She Went'. I was really disappointed as I was sure it was going to be great.