Tuesday, April 17, 2012

CBRIV: Book#5: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Pinky McLadybits




Samantha Kingston is a popular senior at Thomas Jefferson High School. She and her friends are at the top of the teenage food chain. She has a popular boyfriend, parties every weekend, and all of the things people deem important in their teenage years.

And she's dead. So that sucks.

I didn't spoil anything for you, kids. The book opens with Sam talking to you about what flits through your brain at the moment of your death. The flashes of memories and the things you hear and see and smell before you become no more.

Or before you think you'll be no more. Sam still is when she wakes up the next morning in her bed. Well, she wakes up that same morning in her bed, to be specific.

That's right. This is a Groundhog's Day-esque version of death. Like the movie, it can get tedious in parts, reliving things and feeling that if you could grab the main character and shake them that we could all get on with seeing what comes next. However, it never seems boring.

Sam wakes and relives that day, trying to fit the pieces of her last 24 hours into something cohesive, something that creates a picture she can be proud of. Something that can stop this constant rewind and replay of a day she wishes would never unspool.

I sped through the book quickly, never really wanting to put it down. I had hoped that the ending would be different, but I was mistaken. It isn't a bad ending by any means, but the optimist that lives somewhere inside me had hoped it would go another way. Excellent little read, in any case.

1 comment:

  1. I read this one a while ago, but I remember being rather meh about it...but I've been debating reading it again, after I finish the other 10 or so in my pile to to be reads.

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