Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Reviewed by Holly White

What would you do if you had more than one chance to live a single day?  What things would you do differently, and what things would you do the same?  Who would you spend time with?  Who would you kiss?  What would you change about your life?

High school student Samantha Kingston enjoys being part of the in-crowd.  She hangs out with popular friends, and has a hot boyfriend.  Basically, as far as the high school world goes, she has it made—until Friday, February 12, when she is killed after a party.

And that is where the story really begins.

The morning after her death, Samantha wakes up to find that she is stuck in time.  It is Friday morning again.  She has a chance to relive that day but that night, she dies again.  And then she awakens to Friday yet again.  In a story reminiscent of the Groundhog Day movie, Samantha has to relive that day over and over, only in her case, it’s her last day.  And in the process, she learns that different decisions each day lead to different consequences.

Before I Fall was well-characterized, but I must say that at first Samantha and her friends were so selfish and arrogant that I almost put the book down.   I stuck with it, however, and in the end I couldn’t have put it down if I’d wanted to.  As Samantha continued reliving that day, she began to make better choices … sometimes, that is.  The experience of reliving each day changes her which in turn changes those around her. Various people in the story had been struggling with long standing issues ultimately came out and were dealt with.  When this happened, it made the characters more believable for me, because now I could see why they had made the decisions they had made.

There were a number of unexpected things that cropped up in the book, so I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought I would.  I even cried at one point, and that wasn’t even the most moving point in the book. I don’t know why that one scene touched me so, but it did.  Honestly, I thought this was going to be a teenage Cheetos book, you know, literary junk food.  If all books are food, then some are steak dinners, and some are broccoli, some salads, some peanut butter sandwiches, etc.  (Some are lima beans, but we won’t talk about those.)  But this one turned out to be a good chicken dinner, at least.  I found myself moved and inspired by it.  Even more surprisingly, I found myself learning from it.  The themes of motive and consequences are enhanced by the powerful emotions of the teenagers experiencing them.

While as an adult I’m not the intended audience for this book, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.  I liked the way the author wrote about the what motivates both bullies and the outcasts who are their victims.  I think any high school student, popular or not, would enjoy this book and learn from it.  Actually, I think anyone of any age who likes YA fiction with serious themes would enjoy this boo