Before I Fall

I wish I would have read this before watching the movie. It was captivating reading what she’d change each day. The domino effect… everything we do has consequences.

Title: Before I FallAuthor: Lauren OliverRating: 5 StarsMy ReviewI have begun this post in my mind a hundred times already, which given the brevity of the period since completing this book, feels rather impressive. (I clicked "Done" at 7:15am. It is now 9:47am. Lest you think I exaggerate.) Then again, it could be a sign of creeping dementia. There were a few central themes in my internal loop. Here are the highlights... - "Torn! Torn! Torn" (I know, a little dramatic.) - Let me explain why it took me so long to start this book... or Here's the thing about books about death... or I know I'm a hypocrite, but... (Yeah, the death needle keeps skipping on my record.) - Not that Ms. Oliver needs my help... or Not that Before I Fall needs my stamp of approval... (God, I'm such a kiss-up)Ok, "highlights may" have been the wrong word.If you've already subscribed to my reviews then you know that brevity is not my strong suit, but forming an opinion...now, that I can do! Until today. I can't decide if a mind turned to twisting little passageways is a sign of a great book or one I want to throw against the wall...and does wanting to throw it against the wall make it great by definition? Ugh! Damn you twisty little passageways! Let me see if I can start at the beginning and feel my way to an end.The Death StuffSo, the strange thing about having had cancer at a relatively young age is that you start thinking about death earlier than other people, though at 32, not much earlier, I do admit. And thinking about death makes you think all kinds of other, uncomfortable, squishy things that you'd really rather not think about at all. That's the real truth. It's not the Death you're thinking about the most, it's the Life. The things that go on, the people around you, and yes...sadly, mercilessly, yes, the goddarned meaning of it all. You know, you cry into your soup for being a cliche and then you cry into your soup for crying into your soup.So given my normal coping mechanism, which involves shoving all thoughts of Death from my mind at all times (...not as exhausting as you might think with LOL Cats to take up so much of the leftover space), I've been a bit terrified to read Before I Fall. Something about a young girl's untimely death being lived over and over just didn't scream, "mental vacation" to me.And it wasn't, but I'll get to that later (See Torn, Torn, Torn).The Kiss-Up PartBut I do love Lauren Oliver. You might think, "Hey, you didn't give her all fives on all your reviews!" so you can't say that. I disagree. I find her voice fascinating and challenging. She pushes me in odd ways. I'm not even certain I can put my finger on it. (See Torn, Torn, Torn. Am I getting too repetitive? See, that's what happens when you skip the MFA program...)Anyway, the SHORT story (and I do have one) is that I was looking for something to read and I stared at Before I Fall for the hundredth time on Amazon (and once in hardback at The Strand, sigh) and pressed "Buy with One Click." There. I'd done it. I couldn't take it back now. I knew that I would love sinking my teeth into Oliver's work, but I was still afraid. You see, EVERYONE in the world told me that I had to read "The Art of Racing in the Rain."Somehow they thought because I loved my Labrador Retriever, Jack, who passed a couple years ago, that I'd love this book. Ummm, they failed to mention that the dog dies and more importantly, they failed to mention that it was a cancer book. Yeah. When the dog smelled the lady's brain cancer I totally flipped (my s***, as Oliver puts it). I remember reading the dog sniffing her and getting scared and my stomach got all queasy and I thought, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no!" and quite literally running out my door and straight into a five mile road run to calm down. I felt sucker punched. I didn't want to read about dying of cancer, for pete's sakes! (On a side note, that has got to be the darkest freaking dog book EVER.).I'm a HypocriteAnd then I wrote my own cancer book. Writing Eden's Root (and the rest) has been kind of cathartic and it makes me wonder what the author of "Racing in the Rain" went through.Back to Being a Kiss-UpSo it took me a bit to get to this one, despite my love of Oliver's work. Even though it wasn't a cancer book, it was still a "death" book, guaranteed to drag me through a deep vat of squishy feelings. And it did.Torn Torn TornLet me explain my mental waffling. It's hard to like the Mean Girls. Particularly if, like me, you were more on the Juliet Sykes side of the spectrum growing up. I kept thinkgin, "You don't get to take it out on others because you have problems!" (Especially Lindsay, whom I still don't forgive.) But then, I do always say that I like my villains layered and bullies often have "back stories" in real life. Waffle #1.It's also hard to like Sam in particular. It takes the girl about 400 pages to stop focusing entirely on herself, and even then she still pretty much does. I mean, Kent is going to be one messed up kid, poor thing! She could have spared him that. But then, if you're writing about a *real* girl you want to be honest and let's face of it, we all focus on ourselves most of the time, it's the nature of our beast. Waffle #2The resolution was difficult to swallow...the fated feeling of it, like Sam had given up? Or perhaps transcended. Waffle #3If I were going to rate this book on the writing it would be easy: 5 Stars, np, no waffle. If I were going to rate it on how much I like the characters and the ultimate outcomes, in some cases it would be 1 star because my personal feelings are so affected by the meanest of the mean things, and the reality that mean girls (and boys) really do sometimes kill other kids with their cruelty. It's madness. But that is Oliver's point. So back to 5 Stars. FINAL WAFFLE RESOLVED.The core of this story for me was the view of life. THAT is the challenge. Seeing the human being in the bully, the frailties that make us beautiful and wretched. And the caprice of it all. As a wise man once said, "How did I get here?" (Many good days go by...)I didn't want to forgive Sam for turning to the dark side, but I did. And I didn't want to see all that mess. Not just Lindsay and Juliet Sykes and lamo-but-oh-so-real boyfriend-Rob, but the teachers and parents and...ugh, everyone. If you let it get to you, reality can be much too real for comfort. I think this was a very brave story for that reason. I'm finally not torn. It's not about Mean Girls and high school; it's about life and people and chance.If you could relive one day in your life to make it right, which one would it be and why?Ultimately I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a very well-written, well-crafted ya tale...with the caveat that if you only like stories with bright happy endings tied up with bows, it may not be for you.Side note - I am also not a big Kindle "highlighter" mostly because other readers have already picked the essential or beautiful passages by the time I get there. But I found myself unable to stop highlighting with this book because of all the moments that I thought, "I wish I'd written that," or, "God, that's great." I went back and looked at my picks and laughed. What an eclectic sensibility I have. Submitted for your approval in no particular order, some of my faves..."tiny pellets of rain like diamonds.""Most of the time one night blends into the next, and weeks blend into weeks, and months into other months, and sooner or later we all die." (Everyone highlights this, btw.)"But he just puts his mouth up to my ear and says, "I see right through you.""The trees looked like stripped skeletons on either side of us, moaning in the wind.""DOES THIS STRAIGHTJACKET MAKE MY BUTT LOOK BIG?""This is pretty much the solution to every problem you encounter in suburbia: plant a tree, and hope you don't see anyone's privates.""[And] I'm not sure where the damage begins." (Sigh. So sad and succinct all at once.)"I imagine the sun filling Kent's house slowly, frothing upward like champagne." (LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. Keeping rolling the words around my mouth they're so tasty.)"Looking at her, I am reminded of a wisp of smoke curling up into the dark." (Wow. Just perfect.)"I wonder idly how long I can go without sleep before I flip my s*** and start running down the street in my underwear, hallucinating purple spiders." (And simultaneously upsetting one of the only goes in the aforementioned suburbia.)This quote (below) sums up the book to me. It's too long to include the whole thing so I've just included the beginning and end. They tell you what you need to know."I can't stop thinking about how strange life is...how sometimes you can think you're doing the right thing, but it's actually terrible and vice versa."

I bought this book based on the strength of Lauren Oliver's follow up novel, Delirium, knowing that people really love this book. Personally, I both loved and hated it. Loved the beauty of it, the story that it took me through. Hated that these people are so common place, we all know them, and thinking about how unfair it all is.The first thing that struck me very early in the book is just how horrible Sam and her friends are. They are just the epitome of that popular high school girl, the Plastics, if you will. Anyone who didn't know these girls in school was one of them. Because even if you weren't directly targeted by that group, their behavior inevitably affected you.Sam gets to relive the last day of her life seven different times, a chance to do things differently and maybe change the world for the better. It has a very Groundhog Day feel, so much that Sam herself says it - and like you feel when watching Groundhog Day, you keep hoping that eventually, things will turn out right. Everything will be okay. You never really know when the last day of your life will be, how things will turn out. You feel the same for Sam.This book deals with some very heavy themes, some of which were rather hard for me to read through, given my personal history with them. It's written for a young adult audience, but this is the kind of book that I'd want to read along with my teen and talk to them about a variety of the things that happen in it. I feel like this book is pretty true to teen life these days, so it might open up the avenue of conversation for some parents.I cried through several parts of this book, it left me so open and raw, though admittedly it would have had more of an impact if the characters were more likeable. But that's part of the beauty of this one - each chapter is like peeling back the layers of an onion. You learn something new about people at every turn, and figure out that no one is as they really seem. Who knows, maybe it'll make you want to live your life a little better too.

Update Mar 19: Didn't hit me as hard on re-reading but I did remember just about everything that happened which is rare for me. Dropped one star but this clearly had a huge initial impact on me and I can't knock that.This is a book that is going to stick with me for a long time I feel. I don't know what I was expecting from it, but it certainly wasn't the roller coaster it actually put me through. Sam is a bitch. There's no way around that and it isn't until after she has a groundhog day moment upon dying that she realises it. I wanted to hate her. I wanted to hate her idiotic boyfriend. I wanted to hate her spiteful friend. I seriously wanted to hate them. And I couldn't.This is a brave book for more than one reason; it shows the impact of bullying, not just from the bullied, but from the bully. And it doesn't cut corners or pull punches. Sam is mean. She isn't actively malicious, actively trying to make other people's lives hell. She just doesn't think of anyone else but herself and her popularity. She doesn't seem to see the impact that her words have, that her actions have. Lindsay is perhaps more malicious and easier to immediately dislike. Elody is merely a hanger on. But together they make other people's lives miserable.And yet, there is a real power in the depiction of these girls because whilst they are bitches they are more than that and there is a whole wealth of character within them that is hinted at and side stepped. The question, why does the bully become a bully is never truly answered - and I think it would have been a cop out if it had - but there are moments when you can almost taste the fear, the terror and the shame behind the bitch. And you can't hate them. You can accept that they are a bitch. But you cannot hate them.I thought the progression of Juliet's character was exceptionally well done. She is one of the many who have found themselves on the harsh end of the trio of bitches. Despite the entire novel re-playing the same day over and over again, the depiction of Juliet and Samantha's ever increasing attempts to save her is exceptionally well written. For those of us who have been both characters, the bitch and the bullied, it is possible to see sparks of yourself within these characters. For those of us who have been right there were Juliet is, you can almost feel her pain and her desperation, it is possible to feel like you are standing right beside her. And that's impressive.This doesn't glorify suicide or bulimia or anorexia or alcoholism or anything else, it touches on them lightly at times and with a firmer hand at others, but it never glorifies. If anything, it shows just how easy it is to gloss over things because, 'it was only one time' or 'it's nothing to do with me'. Each of these girls has real issues, not just Juliet although obviously hers are worn on her sleeve. Each of these girls is struggling in their own way and yes, they get things very, very wrong. But they deserve a second chance as much as Juliet does.There's an important message here; there is a new day, a new chance and it is never too late... even when it really feels like it is. Because much of what has been done cannot be fixed in one day, but the fact that Samantha is willing to try is perhaps the beginning of that new chance.

This is yet another variation on the theme of Groundhog Day, in which the protagonist must relive the same day over and over until some object is achieved. But where Groundhog Day and most of its pop-culture tributes use the trope for mostly comedic effect, Before I Fall plays it deadly serious.Despite its high-school setting, Before I Fall is not really (or at least not typically) Young Adult fiction. There are elements of romance, but love and friendship are more dominant themes. More important still is the difference between perception and reality, so that by the end of the book no one is who they were at the start. With each day, Sam learns more about herself and the people around her.Seven days (six in the film). I watched the film twice before reading the book, and once immediately after. Reading the book certainly makes you see things in the film that you probably wouldn't; both are good, and the adaptation is fairly faithful, but a lot of secondary characters were cut out in the film version - which is inevitable, but one of key themes in the book is how Sam's actions (like the butterfly of chaos theory) have consequences for the people around her.I love the film. I love the book.

This book starts of with a basic teenage story. The popular ones and the ones they don't like. Then something happens to one of the popular ones and she gets to see glimpses of other people's lives in a way we never do. This eventually changes her.For me it was thought provoking, even though the things I started to think about at times while reading aren't the kind I haven't thought of before. How in the teenage, and why not in the adult world too, things are easily so black and white, even if we don't see it ourselves. How something might look like it's so clear to you, actually is something quite different.The book kept getting better and better all the while. At the very end I couldn't put it down anymore. It was exciting and it was moving. After finishing I'm left a little befuddled. I just sort of want to stop everything for a while and enjoy the feeling of finishing a great book.

It’s so hard to explain why I loved this book so much, bearing in mind that the main character is basically a nasty bully, but here goes...Imagine if you could do over the last day of your life until you got it exactly right? What would you do differently? That’s the chance Samantha gets when she’s involved in a fatal drink-driving accident on her way home from a party. She’s at the top of the pile in her high school, wielding masses of social power, and yet the last day of her life shows her exactly how much power she has.I started off absolutely despising the characters in Before I Fall. God, they’re horrible! Really dreadful. And yet I kept reading because Lauren Oliver’s writing is just so superb. She’s descriptive enough to keep you interested and engaged and she keeps Samantha and her friends just human enough for you to keep caring about them. The things they get up to are basically any parent’s nightmare.Although the book is written from Samantha’s POV, you also get a real feel for the poor girl they pick on, Juliet Sykes. I was never bullied at school - thank Christ - and I was never a bully either, but holy crap, at some points it really feels like you’re the one Samantha and her friends are bullying.There’s some romance in Before I Fall and it keeps you wondering whether, if Samantha finally manages to play out the last day of her life the way the fates want her to, they’ll finally end up together. Kent’s kind of gawky and seriously uncool but you can tell that once the nightmare of high school is over and he’s had a chance to grow into his character and talents, he’ll be fighting the girls off with a s***ty stick.Before I Fall raises so many questions about how the things we do affect other people, even tiny things that from the outside look totally inconsequential. It’s young adult and marketed as such, but it ought to be required reading for everyone.

Before I fall is the story of Sam who dies in a car crash and then wakes up to find that it's the morning of the day she's going to die. At first she has no idea what's happening and kind of stumbles through the day thinking she's just experiencing an amazing case of deja vu up until the point where she dies again and wakes up again at home and it's the same day.This book is kind of like Mean Girls meets Groundhog Day without the comedy element. We see Sam go through many different variations of the same day (7 times to be precise). Each one is written perfectly and we see her experience denial, anger and lastly acceptance. She tries one day to avoid making what she sees as the wrong decisions, also trying to avoid the situation where she ends up in the car. Unfortunately she still wakes up to repeat the same day. She makes bad decisions, good decisions and finally comes to realise that she has something to achieve that will stop the cycle and the end the day. But what will the end of that day be? This was the question I kept asking myself which basically had only 2 answers. Sam was going to live or Sam was still going to die. I went back and forth as to which outcome I wanted and in the end I think the ending was great and fitted with her growth throughout the book.Sam was a very interesting character. We got to see how she became the 'mean girl' she starts out as and how she became friends with Lindsay, Elody and Ally. This is the group who rules their school and who everyone seems to be afraid of. We see her grow and notice her mistakes and try her hardest to fix them. She improves her relationship with her family especially her mother. And I loved the day she spent with her sister - this showed a completely different side to her.I also loved the supporting cast in this book, but mostly Kent and Juliet. Kent saw Sam for who she was and Sam eventually came to see Kent how I really wanted her to. Even though he would never know about some of their moments together Sam carried those with her. Juliet was a major plot point and was written very convincingly. Maybe we should take time to think about what we say and how it might affect that person. From a small incident when she was young (which wasn't even her fault) some mild teasing became years or torment and bullying which drove her to make to some life altering decisions.This was an interesting concept for a book and it came across very well and was extremely thought provoking.