Book review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

I realize many of my blog readers have already read this book, since it's been out since 2009 and was a #1 bestseller. But I just finished it today and have to share.

In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen ­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck.

Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make.

Heartwrenchingly beautiful, this will change the way you look at life, love, and family. Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time.

Damn it. I told myself I wasn't going to cry. I knew this was an emotional book, so before I started reading, I erected a wall of distance between me and the book to ensure it wouldn't hurt me. And, to its credit, this book didn't bang against my wall, demanding to be let in. Instead, it seeped, little by little, bit by bit.

Foreman's words are so subtle, so understated, that they snuck in through the cracks of my carefully constructed defenses and now I am drowning in all these feels. My feels are scattered across my room and I can't wrestle them back into place. They're out there and it's not pretty.

Adam. I love how he's not perfect, how they have troubles, how life has pulled them in different directions, but the depth of his love, of his devotion, of how he *gets* her, it nailed me.

Thank you, Gayle Forman, for a truly beautiful work of art that doesn't stand up and shout, "Look at me! I'm amazing!" It doesn't have to. It just is.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish ugly crying.