Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Publisher: Speak
Pub Date: 01/01/09
Genre: YA Contemporary
Pages: 210
Rating: 3.5 

Blurb:

On a day that started like any other, Mia had everything: a loving family, a gorgeous, admiring boyfriend, and a bright future full of music and full of choices.

 In an instant, almost all of that is taken from her. Caught between life and death, between a happy past and an unknowable future, Mia spends one critical day contemplating the only decision she has left. It is the most important decision she'll ever make.

Simultaneously tragic and hopeful, this is a romantic, riveting, and ultimately uplifting story about memory, music, living, dying, loving.

This review could’ve been different. It didn’t have to be this way.

I was really enjoying If I Stay by Gayle Forman. The writing was exquisite, the characters unique, and I was driven close to tears at points. I was so engaged, compelled to wonder what would happen next and how the narrator’s dilemma would be resolved.

And then the author screwed me over.

Let me backtrack a bit.

So, teenage cellist Mia is on a snowy drive with her parents and little brother when a truck crashes into them. The parents die instantly, and she and her brother Teddy are taken to hospital in critical condition. Mia is in a coma, but her spirit/ghost/soul is aware and follows her body around, though she can’t interact with the world. I guess that’s comforting for those with friends in a coma.

The whole story takes place over a couple of days with a lot of flashbacks and introspection, so most of the action is Mia’s body having various operations and panic stations, and all the people she knows coming in to talk to her and ask her to come out of the coma. Mia’s spirit can wander wherever, so she sees her best friend Kim and boyfriend Adam planning ways to break into the ward and sees the outside world that way.

I really liked the flashbacks. With that short a timeframe, they were necessary to have a book-length work (more on that later). They mostly focus on her boyfriend, her family and music (specifically the cello and her growing proficiency at it as she picks it up as a kid, then goes to classical music summer camps – while Kim is at Jewish camp – and finally auditions for Juilliard). Hang on, I just realised that if she survives, she might be so mangled she’ll be unable to go to Juilliard. That’s sad.

She has a really good relationship with her parents (maybe a bit unrealistic, but nice to read). Her parents both used to be rockers, but her mother is now a housewife and her father an English teacher. We see another iteration of Ditzy Father Syndrome – he didn’t learn to drive until the second child (Teddy). It is a charming family, though.

Anyway, soon enough after the accident, she realises that this spirit of hers has the power to decide whether or not she stays. She weighs up the options – live with her friends but as an orphan, or die with her family? There’s a very touching moment nearish the end where Kim whispers to her that all her friends and non-immediate relatives are waiting downstairs and that “You still have a family.” We see her being swayed different ways by hearing different people talking, and this really got me thinking and seriously trying to figure out what she should do given the available – well, not evidence, but information. Sort of like an emotional detective story.

Here’s where the screwing over comes in. When I’m really enjoying a book but I’m nearing a bit where I’m afraid the author might choose to end it, I take a quick look to see how many pages are left. I was reassured here because there was around a fifth of the book left … and then I turned the page and it said THE END.

You know what was behind that page? Acknowledgements! And background information like the reasoning behind music choices, which I was too insulted to read! For like forty pages! I’d expect to see that sort of thing in fanfiction, not in a published novel.

What had just happened was what might happen 60% of the way through a novel, going by classic techniques or whatever. A sign of hope that doesn’t give away the ending.

It’s absolutely inappropriate for an actual ending!

The book is a measly 210 pages, and the worst part is that the story isn’t even remotely finished. Even as a reader, I could say (broadly) what should happen next.

Oh, and surprise surprise – there’s a sequel. A sequel called Where She Went. Okay, not only is that a massive spoiler, it’s totally inaccurate and doesn’t follow the first book, which is – I’m pretty sure – the entire point of a sequel.

Then again, it’d be difficult to follow the total non-ending of that book.

Look, it might not be the author’s fault. The writing was beautiful, and it does seem like something a publisher might choose to do for commercial purposes (especially going by the movie). But I can’t think of anything that could’ve happened in the book that would have pissed me off more.

Review: Geek Girl by Holly Smale

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2013

Pages: 387

Genre: Contemporary

Source: Library

Rating: 4/5

Blurb:

Harriet Manners knows a lot of facts.

·         Humans have 70,000 thoughts per day.

·         Caterpillars have four thousand muscles.

·         The average person eats a ton of food in a year.

·         Being a Geek + Model = a whole new set of graffiti on your belongings. But clearly she knows nothing about boys. And on a whirlwind modelling trip to Tokyo, Harriet would trade in everything she’s ever learnt for just the faintest idea of what to do next.

I read Geek Girl, the first in this series, a few months ago, and checked this one out of the library recently (it’s probably overdue now. Sorry, library). You can read my review of that here.

As you can probably tell from my very slow updating of this blog, I haven’t been reading much lately. Well, I’ve been reading, but I haven’t been finishing books – I have about four currently on the go. But just over a week ago, my internet went, and I won’t have it back for another week, so … I have a lot more time. I’m also super frustrated and unproductive without internet, and forced to cart my laptop to school, but still.

Back on topic.

I’m not going to bother with a spoiler warning for the first book because there’s not much to spoil. However, there are some delicious twists towards the end of this one (the second book in the series), so I’m not going to spoil those. It should be safe to read on.

Right, so the annoyances I had with the last book mostly remain. The stupid geek facts, for example – someone who knows a lot of trivia isn’t the only kind of geek, though I prefer to say nerd.  The very simple formulae that plaster the book cover just to give the impression of being smart.

They’re inside the book too. In an early chapter, she’s at a photoshoot when suddenly, shock horror, the photographer discovers that she’s stuck physics formulae all over her arm/shoe sole/ inside of jacket so she can study while modelling.

The formulae are:

“F = M x A”

“V = I x R”

“Ek = ½ x M x V2”

“W = M x G”

Now, not only are these all ridiculously simple formulae, they’re written in such a horrifically inefficient way. Also, I’m just going to give you the notation because I can. V = I x R I haven’t covered this year, but I *think* I know it.

F = ma means force is mass by acceleration. V = IR means voltage is current by resistance. E_k = ½ mv² means kinetic energy is half of mass by velocity squared (V2? Ugh). W = mg is mass by acceleration due to gravity, and I like this one because it fits exactly into F = ma (weight is force of gravity on an object, g is a type of acceleration).

 Other things that annoy me:

The astonishingly unlikely plot.

The fact that Harriet’s priorities are absolutely all over the place, and she seems to possess no maturity or common sense whatsoever. Like, a certain level of ditziness is cute, but this is just ridiculous. And she goes around saying she’s such a geek when the back of the book says her main problem is not knowing how to interact with boys. I mean, seriously? The blurb then goes on to say that she’d trade all her knowledge – which, may I remind you, is essentially her entire sense of self – to know how to handle boys and social life while in Tokyo.

Please get some nerd integrity.

The stalker – stalking is still condoned by the author. Toby is sweet, but he is still a stalker.

She obsesses over a boy for the entire book. I don’t understand people who do this, fictional or real.

They’re just one person! Don’t base your entire life around them!

So why the four stars then? Well, first you have to bear in mind that my rating systems are based on gut feeling, and despite the peeves I did really enjoy this book.

The humour can be Big-Bang-Theory-forced, but it’s still funny. Like, just after the irritating Physics formulae, there’s this:

‘”Harriet Manners, are you studying maths in the middle of my fashion shoot?”

I shake my head and look at the air above the photographer’s left ear. You know the crocodile and the bird? I think one of us is about to get eaten.

“No,” I answer in my littlest voice. Because a) It’s physics, and b) I’ve been doing it all the way through.” ‘

I think that quote captures Harriet’s character voice well. Also, why is she called Harriet?

The things I loved from the first book also stayed the same. I love Annabel, and Harriet’s silly Dad (there’s a quote I can’t find where her dad says something like “I’m afraid all the female Pants are Smarty in this house”, and he texts Harriet while she’s in Japan asking can he eat her chocolate. They’re very close and it’s sweet.

The modelling world described (e.g. the crazy designer Yuka Ito) is so much fun to read about, so it’s a rare contemporary that still has a surprising and intriguing setting. The author skilfully sets up lots of scenarios, building towards climaxes at different points in a textbook sort of way (you know, “Complication 1” “Complication 2” “Black Moment”). I know a story needs conflict, but I felt that thing again where I just want a character to gallivant in this cool new setting without running into problems when of course they inevitably can’t.

Holly Smale is really good at creating distinct characters, although I fear some may just be stereotypes (Wilbur is stereotypically gay and Rin is stereotypically Japanese/Asian/kawaii). Then again, the author lived in Japan for two years and I don’t actually know any Japanese girls (I don’t think?) so maybe. They’re very entertaining on the page, anyway.

My favourite part of this book, and the part that definitely pushed it up to four stars, was all the twists. Obviously I can’t go into detail without spoiling, but I definitely got some surprises.

I didn’t particularly like the resolution. Harriet makes a mature decision, much like the one Cath makes (off-screen) in Fangirl, and though I know it’s necessary for her character arc, it promises an end to a lot of what I found entertaining. Then again, there’s a whole third book to read, so there should be lots more in store.

Little Children - Tom Perrotta Review

Published: January 2004

Rating: 3 stars

Reading Little Children was a fairly strange experience for me, because it’s definitely way out of my comfort zone. I’m used to YA, science fiction, dystopian, post-apocalyptic and some other things. I rarely read contemporaries but when I do they’re generally still YA. This one, not so much. It’s adult contemporary, and I’ll throw the word ‘comedy’ in there as well. But it’s disconcerting.

The thing about the books I read – let’s say science fiction and fantasy, for the moment – is that they’re escapist by nature. I mean, I’ve never experienced Earth in the 28^th century, but I still loved Earth Girl by Janet Edwards. I don’t go to Hogwarts, but thanks to J.K. Rowling I could while I was reading.

What I love are ‘what-ifs’ – when one thing about our world is changed and the author lets it play out. So these books have a readymade hook – ’24 teens fight to the death on reality TV’, for example, or ‘Boy enters world of wizardry and magic and fulfils prophecy’.

 But mainstream adult fiction ... just doesn’t have that. I mean, if I had to come up with a one-liner for Little Children, it’d be something like ‘Mothers gossip at the playground and marriages break up.’

And yet I can understand why it’s called things like ‘a fascinating look into married life today’ or ‘a dryly humorous view of life with kids’. It’s a different form of escapism, I think. One where you aren’t taken to a place you’ve never seen before – instead, you’re shown the same old world and helped look at it through different eyes. So all these young mothers and married people and even those who are neither (like me!) see their lives reflected in the characters.

I didn’t find it a gripping book; I’d say it’s definitely a summer beach read. But it was enjoyable to read. It didn’t make a huge impact on me or blow my mind like lots of my YA books, but it was pleasant while I turned the pages. The problem I had was motivating myself to finish the book after I’d put it down for a few days – it doesn’t have the kind of magnetism of some other books, where you just have to finish it now.

It was also a bit rude in places, so if you’re under 18 and/or squeamish about that kind of thing maybe don’t go there. Nothing too heavy, just enough to make me a bit uncomfortable – again, because the relationships it depicted were adult ones, which are very different to their teenage equivalents. In fairness, I did ‘borrow’ this book off my mother, so...

Everything above I can deal with, because they were just small things that bugged me. But I have to say this: I hate the ending. Hate it. It’s just ... pointless. I won’t spoil the ending but I’m used to there being some kind of climax, a confrontation at least. Even in the most badly-written dystopian something large-scale has to happen. This novel just tailed off. It's a pity, because the pacing was great until then.

Damn it made me mad then. But sure look, Little Children was a NYT bestseller, and although it didn’t blow me away, I did like it. To each their own. My favourite part was probably the humour - Perrotta is excellent at funny snide comments, I must admit. 

So there you go. Sorry this is more a diatribe on adult contemporary in general than a review of Little Children, it just kinda happened. I’ve just finished Soon I Will Be Invincible and Nineteen Minutes, so reviews of them are on the way. I’m almost finished The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau which I ADORE. I’ve just started Fuse, the sequel to Pure by Julianna Baggott, so I’ll see how that goes.