Before I Fall - Lauren Oliver

“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 you 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.”

~Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

What would you do if you had only one more day to live? Would you carry out the most exhilarating actions? Stay home to think or to wonder? Samantha Kingston has it all: the world’s most crush-worthy boyfriend, three amazing best friends, and first pick of everything at Thomas Jefferson High, from the best table in the cafeteria to the choicest parking spot. Friday, February 12 should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it turns out to be her last. Fortunately, she gets a second chance. Seven chances, in fact. Reliving her last day 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.

I don’t think I’ll ever read a book that will touch me in quite the same way as this book has.

I didn’t like Samantha Kingston at all in the beginning of this novel. She is clearly a horrible, self-absorbed, bratty teenager. As she starts the same day over again, just as full of herself, I doubted Sam could grow enough to satisfy me. But she did. It was slow and painstaking at times, but she pulled through. She needed to figure it out on her own and at her own pace. I felt like I was living with Sam, learning with Sam. Oliver does an excellent job showing us that gradual shift from spoiled teenager to thoughtful person, realizing that there were consequences to her actions, that the universe did not revolve around her, that maybe popularity wasn’t worth the price she’d paid for it.

Lauren Oliver is a talented, phenomenal writer, and her skills are clearly demonstrated in “Before I Fall”. I have to particularly mention her commendable use of metaphors. It is absolutely stunning. This novel could truly be THE novel of our generation.
Oliver wrote a truly beautiful novel that’s touched me in more than one dimension. This novel shines through from the core: vulnerable, beautiful, transcendent. The story was engrossing- it hooked me from the first line. There aren’t even words to describe how amazing, touching and fantastic this novel really is. If you only read one book in your life, let this be it.