Just One You

Gayle Forman is notorious for surprising you with a small but powerful book, and she doesn't disappoint with Just One Day. What seems like it might just be a simple romance turns into a very different kind of book, and I think you are going to like the journey!

Allyson is a sheltered high school graduate whose parents want her to "see the world" through a carefully monitored Teen Travel trip. She is reluctant to go, but her best friend is going too, so she packs the emergency kit her mother got her and heads off to England. Towards the end of the trip, Allyson and her friend stumble upon an underground Shakespeare production called Guerilla Will. Allyson is taken by one of the actors who catches up with the girls after the production. Dutch Willem is handsome, mysterious, and everything Allyson has been sheltered from. When he offers to take her to Paris for Just One Day, she realizes this is something she would never do... but Lulu would! 

When Willem nicknames her Lulu, it is like Lulu takes over Allyson. She heads to Paris with Willem, a guy she just met, on an adventure never dreamed she could have. But she wasn't expecting the "just one day" to mean she was left alone in a warehouse in the morning with no idea where she was, how to get home, or money to get there. When she finally admits, hours later, that Willem abandoned her despite their amazing night together, she calls the tour leader who gets her back to England. She returns to the states and continues on with her life, but nothing about Allyson's life is the same.

Usually a strong, confident student, Allyson's freshman year in the pre-med classes her mother registered her for is ugly. Her roommates realize she is a dud, and first semester is a nightmare. When she returns for her second semester, her advisor convinces her to take some different classes to break up her hectic schedule. It is the first time Allyson has ever veered from the plan her mother has arranged for her to go to medical school and become a doctor. But Allyson likes pottery. And Shakespeare, no matter how many ugly memories it brings back. And the saving grace is an unusual man named Dee, a classmate of hers who makes her truly examine who Allyson really is... not who her parents want her to be, or her roommates want her to be, but the real Allyson. The Lulu if you will. And the real Allyson has to know what happened to Willem that day a year ago in Paris...

OK. If you read this review, you have to promise me you will read the whole thing because it is going to describe the wild journey my opinion of this book took from start to finish, and if you stop early, you won't know how the journey ended! So this book started like a mediocre romance that was any parent's nightmare: your sheltered 18 year old daughter agrees to go to a foreign country with a strange, mysterious boy (whom she doesn't even know his last name), very little money, and no one knows where she is going. Sounds like a Liam Neeson thriller, right? Yep. Pretty much. I was waiting for her to get kidnapped and sold into an ugly prostitution ring. That didn't happen, but when Willem abandoned her in the artists' squat, I was intrigued. Maybe this wasn't the cliche novel I was starting to imagine it as (and was shocked Forman would write). And it wasn't...

The Allyson went to college and acted like a whiny, depressed lump and I was totally unimpressed. Yes, honey. Some guy made you think he liked you, you slept with him, and he bolted. It sucks, but is it enough to throw your life away for? I think not! But then I started to realize something. When Allyson starts to take the Shakespeare class and meets Dee, it occurred to me she wasn't acting this way because of Willem (although he was part of it). She missed Lulu! When I realized this, the book took on a whole new light for me. Dee was this amazing guy who morphed himself to any situation he was in. When he a girl saw his pink boots and assumed he was gay, he played gay. When someone heard he was from the Bronx and assumed he was form the ghetto, he played ghetto. He even had a persona he put on to pacify Allyson's parents. Seeing Dee's continuous, unapologetic act made Allyson realize she had been living an act- the one she thought everyone wanted her to live. 

And this is where everything came together for me. It was beautiful really... poetic. I loved it. Dee was a phenomenal character who really made Allyson realize how she had been living her life. It wasn't a romantic relationship, but rather a mutual understanding and respect. And while Allyson's trek back to Paris was clearly to find out about Willem, it was more about finding Lulu- the person Allyson knew she really was. And I loved this transformation in Allyson. More to the point, I loved this novel. It is so much more than a romance, a story about lost love, or even a story about breaking free of your parents. It is about finding yourself. And what 18 year old girl doesn't need to take that journey? So push past the frightening actions of a girl who finally found her will (and took some huge risks that make me cringe) and see the journey of a girl you will be proud of. You won't be sorry!

Because She Stayed

In her first book, If I Stay, Gayle Forman told the story of Mia, a young woman left in a coma by the same car accident that killed her mother, father, and little brother. She tells the story as she watches over her unconscious body and the friends and family who plead with her to stay. We know she chose to stay, but I always wondered where she went. Now we know...

When Mia came back, one of the only reason she returned was for her boyfriend and best friend, Adam. Now, three years later, Adam has become an angry, unhappy man. His band is famous, he is dating a famous actress, and he has the world at his fingertips, but he can't have the one thing he really wants: Mia. After she woke up, Adam stayed with her on the long, painful road to recovery. Her determination to play the cello again was one of the driving forces that kept her going. When she left for Julliard the following fall, Adam headed to the LA with his band. Although they were a continent apart, Adam was determined to stay together. what he didn't understand at first was that Mia needed to move on, from both the accident and everything that reminded her of the accident, including Adam.

After three years apart, Adam is in New York with his band, ready to continue their European tour. On a whim, he decides to stay in New York one more night, and he finds himself drawn to the concert hall where Mia is playing. After her concert is finished, she sends someone to bring him backstage. It is that choice, that instant, that changes their lives forever. The survivor's guilt, the shame, the grief, the loss, all come flooding back to both of them as they spend an awkward night together. Mia convinces Adam to take a farewell tour of NYC with her that one last night before she leaves for Japan on her own tour. He agrees, but he seems to do so in the same punishment-seeking way he is about his entire life- believing he doesn't deserve anything better. Along the journey, Mia and Adam share their deepest pains and find in one another the people they once knew as well as the people they have become.

This is a beautiful story full of grief and heartache. Told from Adam's perspective, you can understand how he grieves as much as Mia, although his grief was never realized since they technically weren't his family (although in all aspects but biology they were indeed his family). The reader can also see the grief pattern Mia has experienced where she is simply tired of being treated like the victim. For three years she experienced everyone, from her grandparents to her professors, treating her like she was fragile and would break at any moment. She hated it. She was tired of everyone giving her a free pass because of her family. She just wanted to be seen for who she was: a girl, a cellist, a person who didn't lose everything and at the same time, a person who did lose everything. Together, Mia and Adam heal one another, and it is a story you need to experience to understand.

I not only suggest this story for anyone who read the first book, but I also recommend both books as a great story for struggling readers. The story starts with a traumatizing event and continues in a full story arc through the culmination of the sequel. It is a well-envisioned and beautiful story that will undoubtedly touch anyone who graces its pages. Gayle Forman is a great author, and I am grateful she decided to continue this story.

Would You Stay?

If I Stay

by Guest Author Julia

I just finished reading If I Stay by Gayle Forman. I would recommend this book because you really get to know the characters. You get to know them as if they were a part of your own family. During the course of this book, you will begin to express feelings for each character.

This story is set in a modern town outside Portland Maine. It follows the life of a girl, named Grace, that is in a coma after being in a car crash that kills the rest of her family. She is faced with a decision whether or not to stay with her boyfriend Adam and her extended family, or join her brother, mother and father on the other side. She has an out of body experience while she is in a coma. She hears and sees everything her loved ones are going through.  Throughout the entire story, the main character would notice small details about the people around her which would trigger memories and flashbacks. I liked this because it added depth to the story.

 If I Stay  is what fiction is all about. It is recommended for teens through young adults. The New York Times compared it to the Twilight novels which is why I picked it up in the first place. If you like Twilight, then you will definitely like this book. I liked it because the main character’s boyfriend was massively hot and dreamy. I want a guy in my life like him. Throughout the whole book, I was jealous of the relationship between Grace and Adam. I also liked it because I really felt the emotion of what the characters were going through.  I felt like I had to make decisions about what Grace should do.

This book became like a movie in my head, because it was easy to follow and it had vivid details. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a story that brings your emotions on a roller coaster ride.  It explores the complexities of the teenage female mind. It also explores the emotional state that a person goes through when a loved one experiences trauma and is on the brink of leaving... Forever. If you like this kind of book, then I would suggest picking it up and reading it. You will thank me later.

You will Want to Stay with this book until the End.

If I Stay, by Gayle Forman has a beautiful cover and a beautifully haunting story to tell you. I read this book in one sitting this summer because it was so haunting, and was reminded of it when I saw a student reading it in study hall one night. In one of those moments we teachers of dyslexic children live for, I found myself talking with her about the book with a passion and an urgency that instantly transported me to the day I couldn't put this book down.

In the first few pages, the story begins with a horrific car accident. Mia wakes up on the side of the road in the middle of the carnage. She sees the bodies of her parents and then her own. Mia is still alive after the accident, but just barely. She is transported to the hospital where her body is fighting between life and death and her mind still isn't sure.

Mia's family, friends, and boyfriend come by one by one and share their love for her, but without her parents, is there anything to return for? Mia must make the ultimate choice that none of us can imagine making- whether it is worth fighting to stay alive or easier to just relax into a peaceful end.

This book is beautiful and terribly sad right from the beginning. Hearing the words her family says to Mia's stoic face reminds me of my own family- loving and devoted beyond the average definitions of such words. You can feel how much they love her and still understand how easy it would be for her to just let go and not face the pain of what has happened to her parents. If I Stay is a relatively short read, but one that will stay with you long after you have turned the last page.