domingo, 12 de dezembro de 2010

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver


Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

What if you had only 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’s her last. The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. In fact, she re-lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she had ever imagined.

Before I Fall is the excellently written, thought provoking debut novel by Lauren Oliver. This is a gripping, fast paced story that had me hooked from the first pages. It kept me up late a couple nights reading since I could not put it down.

This book tells the story of high school student Samantha (Sam) Kingston. Sam has it all- popularity, best friends, a handsome boyfriend. She loses it all in a heartbeat when she suddenly dies in a car accident. Sam wakes up the morning after her death, to find she is reliving the day again. She relives the day of her death 7 times and finds how making small changes in her day can make a big impact on the lives of those around her.

      In the beginning of this story it seemed like a cross between Mean Girls and Groundhog Day. Sam and her friends are in some ways typical mean girls and are selfish and exploit their popularity to put down others. However, as Sam lives her day over and over we see more layers behind her and her friends. It is a really interesting story telling device. And though Sam and her friends make some bad decisions we do get a sense of where they are coming from. The friendship between Sam and her 3 best friends felt very authentic and I enjoyed their scenes although felt like shaking them sometimes.
This story brought on such a roller coaster of emotions

Lauren Oliver comes from a family of writers and so has always (mistakenly) believed that spending hours in front of the computer every day, mulling over the difference between “chortling” and “chuckling,” is normal. She has always been an avid reader.

She attended the University of Chicago, where she continued to be as impractical as possible by majoring in philosophy and literature. After college, she attended the MFA program at NYU and worked briefly as the world’s worst editorial assistant, and only marginally better assistant editor, at a major publishing house in New York. Her major career contributions during this time were flouting the corporate dress code at every possible turn and repeatedly breaking the printer. Before I Fall is her first published novel.

She is deeply grateful for the chance to continue writing, as she has never been particularly good at anything else.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6482837-before-i-fall?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Dec_newsletter&utm_content=oliverbtitle

Nenhum comentário: