If I Stay movie and book review

If I Stay is based on a book by Gayle Forman. It is about a girl Mia whose family gets into a car accident. She is in a state of comatose and is outside herself watching everything happen to her. She has to decide if she wants to stay or go. It tells a story about love and really reminds us all that life can change in a blink of an eye. 

Gayle Forman in her books can always create real, honest, and funny characters. The book is heavy from the very beginning. We only know the character and her family for about 20 pages then their lives change forever. To only know a character for a brief time a feel so much for them is truly impressive. It switches back and forth from her past life and what is happening in the present. Mia is cellist who is thinking about Juilliard. Her dad was in a punk rock band and her mom was a feminist bitch (as described in the book). Mia is also completely in love with Adam who is in a rock band. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and learning about them. My absolute favorite part of the book was all the punk rock references from Debbie Harry to Iggy pop, Velvet Underground, and many more. Usually in Young Adult books there are not punk rock in it, which is a subculture greatly overlooked in books. 

Going into the movie I was not expecting it to be good at all. Heres why, I've seen the previews and it looked very sentimental. That is a part of the book but, it really is not the whole book. When big movie studios imagine teenagers they think of stupid, unempathetic, and self obsessed people. So, I always get nervous when big studios adapt Young Adult books to movies. I was pleasantly surprised when the movie was really good! I thought they did the movie very wisely, and the placing of everything really worked. I was worried it would be confusing or mess up the flow having to jump around it did not. They really set everything up perfectly and made the most of what they had. A lot of my favorite dialogue that was in the book was in there too. The music aspects of the story really felt real and true to the book. The punk rock came across really good in the movie. I was very happy with it and if it wasn't I knew I was not going to like the movie. Both the movie and the book are great. 

Overall I would give both a 90%

Love,

Maddie