Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
My Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Book Summary:
With this stunning debut novel, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver emerged as one of today’s foremost authors of young adult fiction. Like Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why and Gayle Forman’s If I Stay, Before I Fall raises thought-provoking questions about love, death, and how one person’s life can affect so many others.
For popular high school senior Samantha Kingston, February 12—”Cupid Day”—should be one big party, a day of valentines and roses and the privileges that come with being at the top of the social pyramid. And it is…until she dies in a terrible accident that night.
However, she still wakes up the next morning. In fact, Sam 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 ever imagined.
Named to numerous state reading lists, this novel was also recognized as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, The Daily Beast, NPR, and Publishers Weekly. It has been optioned for film by Fox 2000 Pictures.
Book Review:
This is a book that’ll make you think – I tend to like that quality in a book. As we put down a book after reading it, if it has the capability to make us give it a second thought, the author has succeeded to some extent. If it makes us evaluate ourselves, that’s quite an accomplishment for the author. Lauren Oliver has definitely done as much with her debut novel for me.
The fact that the protagonist of the book, Samantha Kingston, is a high school girl doesn’t make it difficult for the reader to relate to her. Because we have all gone through high school and even for those of us who have forgotten what it was like, to belong to that neither-adult-nor-kid category, this book will bring back your memories from that period. It doesn’t matter whether you were popular or nerdy or the wall flower, you will see yourselves in her shoes. Because none of us were perfect, nor is Samantha.
If you are a fan of the butterfly effect, you’ll enjoy this book. For those of you who are not familiar with the term – Imagine a smile saving a life or a smirk costing one. Sometimes we forget our actions, even the most minute ones, have consequences. Sometimes those consequences tend to be much bigger than we ever imagined them to be. The power to act is great; it’s also a big responsibility; at the end of this book, we also learn that having such power does not mean we can play God and sometimes, as powerful as we feel, we might be just as helpless. And to save ourselves, we must save those around us. Or die trying, several times as Samantha Kingston does…
