Author: Gayle Forman
Series: If I Stay, #1
Pages: 262
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Summary: The critically acclaimed, bestselling novel from Gayle Forman, author of Where She Went, Just One Day, and the forthcoming Just One Year. 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. Review: The book is one of the most beautifully written books out there. It's filled with love, heartache, loss and so much more. The concept was so genius that I flew through it needing to know what the ending would hold. I loved that it moved between past and present, that gave me the backstory that I crave. If I Stay was a roller coaster of emotions and I definitely cried a few times. That ending was so bittersweet and I'm ready fro book two. I loved all of these characters, well except for the old, cranky nurse (self explanatory). I am happy that Adam was such a good guy that he stuck around, a lot probably wouldn't. I'm also thankful that Kim was such a good friend. Now I need more! Everyone needs to read this book because it is so thought provoking. I'm sure the movie has also made it more popular so as long as the movie stays true to the book it will be a hit.
Title: Where She Went
Author: Gayle Forman
Series: If I Stay, #2
Pages: 264
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Summary: It's been three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life.
And three years he's spent wondering why.
When their paths cross again in New York City, Adam and Mia are brought back together for one life-changing night.
Adam finally has the opportunity to ask Mia the questions that have been haunting him. But will a few hours in this magical city be enough to lay their past to rest, for good - or can you really have a second chance at first love?
Review: I picked Where She Went up right after I finished reading If I Stay and I liked it just not as much as the first. I wish that it took place right after If I Stay, not three years in the future. I hate missing everything that happened in between. I know it talks about it in the flashbacks but I wish it was in real time instead. I'm happy with the ending but I would also love an update, wink, wink lol.
I'm not really sure what else to say about this book other than if you have Read If I Stay then you need to grab Where She went just to get some closure haha.
About this author
In 2002, I went traveling for a year around the world with my husband, Nick. I spent time hanging out with some pretty interesting people, a third sex (we’d probably call them transvestites here) in Tonga, Tolkien-obsessed, role-playing punks in Kazakhstan (bonus points to those of you who can find Kazakhstan on a map), working class hip-hop stars in Tanzania. The result of that year was my first book, a travel memoir called You Can’t Get There From Here: A Year On the Fringes of a Shrinking World. You can read about my trip and see pictures of it here.
What do you do when you get back home after traveling the globe for a whole year? First, you get disproportionately excited by the little comforts in life: Not having to look at a map to get everywhere? Yay! Being able to drink coffee without getting dressed and schlepping to a café first? Bliss! Then, if you’re 32 years old and have been with your husband for evah, you have a kid. Which we did. Presto, Willa!
So, there I was. With a baby. And all of a sudden I couldn’t do the kind of gallivanty reporting I’d done before. Well, you know how they say in life when one door closes another opens? In my case, the door came clear off the frame. Because I discovered that I could take the most amazing journeys of my life without ever having to leave my desk. It was all in my head. In stories I could make up. And the people I wanted to take these fantastical journeys with, they all happened to be between the ages of 12 and 20. I don’t know why. These are just the people who beckon me. And I go where I’m told.
My first young-adult novel, Sisters in Sanity, was based on another one of those social justice articles I wrote when for Seventeen and you can click here to read the article. Sisters was published in 2007. My next book, If I Stay, was published in April of 2009 by Dutton. It is also being published in 30 countries around the world, which is surreal. The sequel/companion book to If I Stay, Where She Went, comes out in April 2011. I am currently working on a new YA novel, that is, when my kids (plural, after Willa we adopted Denbele from Ethiopia) allow me to. And after that book is finished, I’ll write another, and another….
Wow. This is crazy long. I suppose the short version of this bio could simply read: My name is Gayle Forman and I love to write young-adult novels. Because I do. So thank you for reading them. Because without you, it’d just be me. And the voices in my head.
Gayle Forman is an award-winning author and journalist whose articles have appeared in such publications asJane, Seventeen, Glamour, Elle, and The New York Times Magazine, to name just a few. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
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