Before I Fall

Author: Lauren Oliver

Pages: 470

Rating: Four Waffles

Excerpt:
The thing is, you don't get to know. It's not like you wake up with a bad feeling in your stomach. You don't see shadows where there shouldn't be any. You don't remember to tell your parents that you love them or--in may case--remember to say good-bye to them at all.
If you're like me, you wake up with seven minutes and forty-seven seconds before your best friend is supposed to be picking you up. You're too busy worrying about how many roses you'll going to get on Cupid Day to do anything more than throw on your clothes, brush your teeth, and pray to God that you left your makeup in the bottom of your messenger bag so you can do it in the car.

Summary: Samantha's Kingston's got it all; money, friends, popularity, a cute boyfriend and an overall perfect teenage life. She thinks that today will be just like any other day, filled with fun, mischief and a good party to start off the weekend. Instead, it ends up being her last. When Sam dies in car crash, she wakes up only to find herself reliving February 12th over and over...and over. What does it mean? Follow Sam through the last seven days (well rather one day) of her life, as she struggles to find out what the meaning of living really is.

What’s Up: I have been wanting to read this book for the longest time, and I was very happy that I got it for Christmas. And I was not disappointed. At first I was rather taken aback by Sam and her friends's views in the beginning of the book, I mean, talk about trashy. So I started out pretty much hating them, and then as I read through the book, I grew to like Sam more an more for reasons I will not disclose. One thing I don't really get is, on Sam's seventh day reliving February 12, how did she know it was her last? Just a hunch? So I am a little iffy on that part. Everything else I was pretty happy with. I enjoyed living all those seven days with Sam, she did something different everyday and I was always looking forward to seeing what she would be up to the next day. Not to mention the book was very good at pulling me in. I mean this in not only in the way that it was a page turner, but it was also very good at pulling me into Sam's life. At one point when I was reading late at night, I had to set the book down because Sam was in a rather scary situation and I was getting too freaked out! Although the plot wasn't very original--girl dies and relives her last day over and over to make things right--but I did like the story. Characters weren't really easy to sympathize with, but more like the reader can easily associate with them, as in they have that sort of a figure in their life that they are familiar with so they can apply the characters to their life. Does that make any sense? In conclusion, this book is one I would not mind reading again.

Do I recommend it? Yes :) I was very pleased with this book. It was not go-out-and-buy-now good, but reserve-from-your-library-now good, I suppose. But if I made a list of 50 books you should read before you die, I would say that Before I Fall would make that list.