[REVIEW] Before I Fall

Series: N/A
Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: young adult, contemporary, romance
Published: October 25, 2010 (first published March 2, 2010)
Publisher: Harper
ISBN: 978-0-06-172681-1
Link: goodreads

Synopsis: 

What if you only had one day to live?
What would you do? Who would you kiss?
And how far would you go to save your own life? 

Samantha Kingston has it all: looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12th, should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it turns out to be her last. 

The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. Living the last day of her life seven times during one miraculous week, she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death – and discover the true value of everything she is in danger of losing.

*              *              *

Maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there’s a tomorrow. Maybe for you there’s one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around it, let it slide like coins through your fingers. So much time you can waste it.
But for some of us there’s only today. And the truth is, you never really know.

*              *              *

After reading Before I Fall and pondering for a bit, Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why crossed my mind. Quoting Thirteen Reasons Why: You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. I think it makes complete sense to remember it just because that’s one of the things this novel wants to point out and I think it’s one of the things Samantha learned in here. It’s one of the things that she tries to make up for at the end of the story.

Before I Fall started pretty rough for me mainly because I’m not anymore a fan of popular bitch girls whining about life or something. But as the story progress, I come to love Samantha. I really love how Samantha is in each day she relives her last day. There’s always something new that she does and something new that she learns. These new things that she learns play roles on the following day she lives. I love how each of those new realizations and learning develops Samantha into someone very wonderful at the end of the book.

I really like the development in Samantha. It’s very noticeable. You can see right at the beginning that she’s your typical popular girl doing things she herself practically just do because it’s what her friends does or it’s what her social standing dictates. Samantha herself admits to it by saying why she drops a few things in her life just because her best friend, Lindsay, says so; or why she still dates her boy friend, Rob, just because he’s supposed to be one of the most popular guys out there even though he’s a complete douche bag.

Like they said (or at least what I’ve heard in one of the series I watch), no one changes overnight. The development in Samantha happened gradually throughout the novel. The things she does are very reasonable in a sense that they are all in line with her character as well as the things that happens to her.

The romance is really wonderful. It’s not really that clingy type of romance like in almost every romance novel out there since the whole story happened in (supposedly) one day. While Samantha rants about her boyfriend Rob which is obviously not the right choice, there’s Kent’s who’s always trying to enter the scene each day – the childhood friend, the nerd, the unnoticed guy. While it’s very obvious right from the very beginning to whom Samantha will really fall at the end the ride towards it is really beautiful.

*              *              *

For me, Lauren Oliver successfully wrote quite an inspirational young adult novel. While I’m not really the like Samantha, Before I Fall allowed me to realize a few things particularly looking at the value of everything in my life.

inspirational. relatable. nice quotes. reread-able. beautifully written.