109. BEFORE I FALL

Lauren Oliver 2010

In this Groundhog day-like experience with a twist geared for young adults, Sam Kingston dies but gets seven chances to revisit the last day of her life, cupid day, February 12. As a popular, beautiful, self-absorbed senior in high school she gets that enviable prospect to slowly change the course of her relationship with her family, her childhood friend Kent, best friends Lyndsey, Ally and Elody and possibly correct an injustice towards classmate Juliet. Every day was a new day, at first resisted, until each new day became a possible new beginning, an authentic new chance. This book effectively deals with the everyday routines and stresses of the high-school life teenagers face today. It is engaging, nostalgic, funny, candid and surprisingly realistic.

'They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that's not how it happened for me.'(opening line)

'There's always going to be a person laughing and somebody getting laughed at. It happens every day, in every school, in every town in America-- probably in the world, for all I know. The whole point of growing up is learning to stay on the laughing side.'(5)

'I don't want to sound harsh, but it's such a waste to be a dork and kind of slow on the uptake. What's the point if you can't at least play Beethoven or win state spelling bees or go to Harvard or something?'(24)

'It's like high school holds two different worlds, revolving around each other and never touching: the haves and the have-nots. I guess it's a good thing. High school is supposed to prepare you for the real world, after all.'(65)

'In my dream I know I am falling though there is no up or down, no walls or sides or ceilings, just the sensation of cold, and darkness everywhere. I am so scared I could scream, but when I open my mouth nothing happens, and I wonder if you fall forever and ever and never touch down, is it really still falling?'(82)

'A good friend keeps your secrets for you. A best friend helps you keep your own secrets.'(107)

'Here's another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you're dead, it's the only thing that keeps you alive.'(137)

'You keep drawing a line farther and farther away, crossing it every time. That's how people end up stepping off the edge of the earth. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to bust out of orbit, to spin out to a place where no one can touch you. To lose yourself-- to get lost.'(195)

'My point is: maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around in 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.(268)

'It's weird how much people change... It's kind of sad, if you think about it. Like there's no continuity in people at all. Like something ruptures when you hit twelve, or thirteen, or whatever the age is when you're no longer a kid but a "young adult," and after that you're a totally different person. Maybe even a less happy person. Maybe even a worse one.'(276)

'It amazes me how easy it is for things to change, how easy it is to start off down the same road you always take and wind up somewhere new. Just one false step, one pause, one detour, and you end up with new friends or a bad reputation or a boyfriend or a breakup. It's never occurred to me before; I've never been able to see it. And it makes me feel, weirdly, like maybe all of these different possibilities exist at the same time, like each moment we live has a thousand other moments layered underneath it that look different.'(285)

'Most of the time-- 99 percent of the time-- you just don't know how and why the threads are looped together; and that's okay. Do a good thing and something bad happens. Do a bad thing and something good happens. Do nothing and everything explodes... And very, very rarely-- by some miracle of chance and coincidence, butterflies beating their wings just so and all the threads hanging together for a minute-- you get the chance to do the right thing.'(426)

'The rest you have to find out for yourself.'(470)

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First Edition, Harper Collins Book

470 pages

Book borrowed from the library

Thanks to Jillian at Random Ramblings for the book idea. Her review is here.