Nose in a Book

Anonymous asked

Have you ever read "Where She Went" by Gayle Forman? It's the sequel to "If I Stay". I was wondering about your thoughts on the pair and which book you liked better.

Yes I have! I preferred If I Stay and didn’t like Where She Went as much, but I think I’m in the minority on that one. You can read my review for If I Stay here and Where She Went here.

6 years ago 4 notes

paperflowersforever asked

I saw your house blog posts and one of them mentioned if i stay by gayle forman. I was curious if you had read the sequel to it and what your thoughts were on it. I finished the first and loved it, and started the sequel, but wasn't as taken by it.

I felt the same! A lot of people love the sequel more, but I just didn’t feel as intensely about it as felt about If I Stay. Here is my review, although I think I would give it a 3.5/5 now.

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5 years ago 1 note

coat-tail-deactivated20140908 asked

hi, could you recommend me some good books? :)

Sure! I would recommend If I Stay by Gayle Forman, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, Paper Towns by John Green, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, Stolen by Lucy Christopher, Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak and Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. Not sure if any of those will suit you, but hopefully someone of them will. Here’s my general recommendations page and my tagged recommendations (x).

recommendations ask

5 years ago 22 notes

Anonymous asked

I'm making a list of books to read. I like Young Adult fiction - mostly sports books, happy ending romance books, and books about musicians. Any recommendations?

For sports books I’m at a loss, but If I Stay and Where I Went by Gayle Forman are both romance books about music and musicians and are very well written. This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen and The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour also feature musicians. Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony is also a good one, though it’s less of a novel and more of a story told through a scrapbook.
As for happy ending romance books, I loved Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson and Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. I hope that helps!

5 years ago 10 notes

nonsenseinnocence asked

Hi! I loved reading the books Before I Fall and Every day. Can you recommend any books like those two? :)

Sure! Definitely If I Stay by Gayle Forman and although they’re different, you might like Lauren Oliver's Delirium series. You might like The Future of Us by Jay Asher Carolyn Mackler and My Name Is Memory by Ann Brashares.

Something similar is Tempest by Julie Cross, although personally I didn’t really like it. It’s about time travel.

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5 years ago 5 notes

Book Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Mia is in her final year of high school, and has a promising career as a cello player ahead of her. She just nailed her audition for Julliard, and she’s dating the lead singer of an up and coming band. But when an impromptu road trip with her family on a snow day results in a horrifying car accident, Mia’s life will never be the same. After the accident, Mia wakes up standing over the wreckage, while the paramedics take her damaged body to the hospital. Her music loving parents are found dead at the scene, and Mia is in grave condition. As Mia’s remaining family members visit her in the hospital, she realizes that she has a choice to make. How can she live in a world without her parents? But how can she leave her boyfriend and her best friend? Over twenty-four hours in the hospital, Mia has to grapple with the biggest decision of her life: whether to end it or keep on living.

This book was recommended to me over and over, but all the same I still had misgivings before I started reading. The quote at the top of the book from USA Today recommending If I Stay to fans of Twilight didn’t help. Twilight isn’t really my thing, so the comparison made me nervous. I started this book to kill time, but I ended up falling in love with it very quickly. As for the Twilight comparison, these two books have very little in common. If I Stay was similar to Before I Fall, not just because of the plot but also because of the writing styles. However, both can stand on their own and were similar without it feeling repetitive. Initially, I didn’t quite understand what this book was about. Soon, Mia is in a fatal car accident, and watches over her comatose self as she tries to decide whether she should live or not. Forman’s writing was quite lovely, and I loved the role music played in the novel. Initially, I wondered how the whole novel could focus on Mia making a single decision. I worried that it would drag on. Flashbacks are shown throughout the novel, and they helped with the pacing and kept the book from feeling dull. While I wouldn’t go as far to call the story heart wrenching, it was an emotional read. There were sections that certainly were tearjerkers, such as the end. Adam and Kim were incredibly realistic characters, and I also loved Mia’s family. I did like Mia as a protagonist, although she acted differently around other characters than you would expect from her narration. Like Adam, I loved her passion for music, but I found her to be a bit too perfect, and not as strong as some of the secondary characters. I was actually surprised to learn that there is a follow up to If I Stay, since I thought this was a stand-alone type of book. All the same, I am looking forward to reading the sequel. With most books, I love to read other reviews right after I finish, to hear what other people think. With If I Stay, I had no desire to read what other people had to say, since I just didn’t want to hear anything negative about this compelling novel, which was a first for me. Although If I Stay wasn’t perfect, reading it was a very personal experience and I would definitely recommend it.

4.5/5

“Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you.”

book review

6 years ago 17 notes