If I Stay Summary

Over the past two weeks, I have started and finished Gayle Forman’s novel, If I Stay. This novel is 289 pages long. The plot of this book is about a family of four whose entire life revolves around music. Both of the parents have played music all of their lives, along with the teenager named Mia and the eight year old son named Teddy. This book takes place over one day and all of the events that occurred. The day started out as any other, and the family was going to visit their friends. It was a snowy day, and while cruising down the highway, their car rolled and the only one who made it out alive was Mia. She is rushed to the hospital and is in a coma. The one thing that is odd is that there is two of her. There is the Mia that is in a coma who has no idea of her surroundings, and there is also a Mia who watches everything that goes on that day, but nobody else can see her. Throughout her day in the hospital, she discovers that she is the one controlling if she lives or not. Throughout this novel, there are three main emotions present. They are confusion, heartbreak, and sympathy. The first emotion in this novel is confusion. When Mia figures out that she is in the hospital, she is very confused as to where the rest of her family is. She does not want to face the fact that they have died. Her nightmare becomes a reality when she overhears her grandparents in the waiting room talking about what would happen with Mia. Mia was confused as to why they were talking about an orphanage, but she later found out that it was for her future if she made it out of the hospital alive. Her family tried to keep the reality of this situation clandestine from Mia. Also, Mia was confused about what she was …show more content…
As soon as Mia’s grandparents and friends found out that she was in critical condition in the hospital, they all rushed to see her. At first, none of them were allowed into her room to see her. They all had deep sympathies for Mia because they knew that the rest of her family had died on the scene of the car crash. They did not know what they were supposed to do with her now that she did not have a family. They felt extremely bad for her, and were praying nonstop. The family was trying to abjure the truth of what they all knew was going to happen. Mia’s grandma was trying to cherish her granddaughter for the moments she had left with her. She wanted to see her beloved granddaughter as how she knew she was. “She works her way down, pulling the hair out from under the pillow so it streams down my chest, hiding some of the lines and tubes connected to me” (Forman 177). This is one of the other emotions that were present while reading Forman’s novel, If I Stay. These are three of the many emotions that were prevalent to me while reading Gayle Forman’s If I Stay. I am currently looking for another book that is similar to this one. I think that I should get a 9.5/10 on this journal because I feel that I tried my hardest to explain and connect the emotions throughout this