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blueshifted 's review for:
Before I Fall
by Lauren Oliver
I got this book really confused with "If I Stay" and kept wondering why no-one was playing a cello. Ah...so one that embarrassing difference was sorted out.....
This book is like Groundhog's day. Only a much more depressing teenage version. But it does have a strong moral of the story to it.
Samantha is wing-woman to the popular, yet really awful Lindsay. Who plucked her out of obscurity and social darkness several grades back. All the girls around Lindsay seem to fear losing their social footing, and being banished back to obscurity, and truly Lindsay would be a terrifying, terrifying EX-best-friend. Though the book doesn't try to vilify her, instead showing that she's also messed up and confused, and emotional stunted. She's still hard to take.
As she relives her death-day over and over again, and tries to find out how to put things right, she begins to learn a lot about things she took for granted. Like her little sister, her parents. Why Lindsay torments Juliet, her true feelings for her jock boyfriend Rob, and the boy who was her best friend when she was little before popularity found her.
Unlike Groundhog Day, the prize for getting it right, isn't to make it to the next day, it's pretty set that death-day is coming, an unstoppable force, and the way to put things right, aren't always the easiest, or the way you thought they would be. Sam has to break out of her non-empathetic bubble, and realize the ripple effect of her actions, and that it's possible to have Lindsay as a friend, and not be controlled by her.
I...didn't exactly relate to Sam, I was horribly unpopular in school, and teased often. It never occurred to me, to be lackey, or a yes-girl to make others like me. I had no concept that often popularity could mean giving up your individuality for many. And that really brought that home to me - it was a weird insight into how the "other half" must have lived, I wish I would have understood these concepts at the time, I think I would have felt a little more empowered at the time.
The writing and the character development was pretty strong, though the two main guys felt a little bit generic, the oversexed slightly callous Jock, and the scruffy sensitive-sweet guy that remembers conversations he had when he was 7. And seriously, does it suck to be Kent or what?
This book is like Groundhog's day. Only a much more depressing teenage version. But it does have a strong moral of the story to it.
Samantha is wing-woman to the popular, yet really awful Lindsay. Who plucked her out of obscurity and social darkness several grades back. All the girls around Lindsay seem to fear losing their social footing, and being banished back to obscurity, and truly Lindsay would be a terrifying, terrifying EX-best-friend. Though the book doesn't try to vilify her, instead showing that she's also messed up and confused, and emotional stunted. She's still hard to take.
As she relives her death-day over and over again, and tries to find out how to put things right, she begins to learn a lot about things she took for granted. Like her little sister, her parents. Why Lindsay torments Juliet, her true feelings for her jock boyfriend Rob, and the boy who was her best friend when she was little before popularity found her.
Unlike Groundhog Day, the prize for getting it right, isn't to make it to the next day, it's pretty set that death-day is coming, an unstoppable force, and the way to put things right, aren't always the easiest, or the way you thought they would be. Sam has to break out of her non-empathetic bubble, and realize the ripple effect of her actions, and that it's possible to have Lindsay as a friend, and not be controlled by her.
I...didn't exactly relate to Sam, I was horribly unpopular in school, and teased often. It never occurred to me, to be lackey, or a yes-girl to make others like me. I had no concept that often popularity could mean giving up your individuality for many. And that really brought that home to me - it was a weird insight into how the "other half" must have lived, I wish I would have understood these concepts at the time, I think I would have felt a little more empowered at the time.
The writing and the character development was pretty strong, though the two main guys felt a little bit generic, the oversexed slightly callous Jock, and the scruffy sensitive-sweet guy that remembers conversations he had when he was 7. And seriously, does it suck to be Kent or what?