Before I Fall

This week I decided to look at books for the young adults. I found this book sitting at home, in my bookshelf, with not a clue on how it ended up there, so I chose to read it. The book is titled 'Before I Fall", Lauren Oliver's debut novel. 

This book is about a pretty high-school bully (Samantha) who meets a tragic end and is forced to relive her last day on Earth until she makes the right changes to her life.  
Samantha is part of a four-girl popular group of the school. Samantha has it all: looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. People don't speak to them unless spoken to first. Sam's last day is Cupid Day (similar to Valentine's Day, where roses are given out at school - the more you get, the more popular you are). It should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it turns out to be her last. During the duration of the day she cheats on a test, flirts shamelessly with her calculus teacher, cuts class, gets drunk and treats her classmates like garbage--Sam and her friends are especially cruel to one girl in particular, Juliet. That night, after a party at Kent's house, the girls get in their car and as they leave, they accidentally hit Juliet, which results in a car with Samantha and Juliet dying. However Samantha wakes up the next morning and has to live  the last day of her life seven times during one miraculous week. Each time trying to change the outcome however in the end to realise that she's not meant to save herself rather Juliet.

The storyline is based on the question, "what if you only had one day to live....?" Lauren Oliver questions us the readers to think about what we would do if we could relive our last day over again? If our whole life flashed before our eyes, what would we see and would we have any regrets? and are there things that we would change?

The book is written in first person from Samantha. It gives us access to her mind and her thoughts in how everyday she wakes up again to find herself in a groundhog day motion, reliving her last day alive and her thinking into how she is going to change that day. Each time she relives that day, she learns something new, like how her friend started hating Juliet, flirting with your teacher doesn't always end well, not to judge someone without getting to know them first and that she is actually in love with Kent not Rob.

Oliver is an amazing writer, so unobtrusive and descriptive. She has an incredible way with words and imagery. She captures the reader's emotions throughout the whole book, with the reader hating Samantha and her group at the start and as the book moves along, you start feeling 'sorry' for Samantha especially as you see how much she has changed her life to be a better person.

I think this book is a book definitely for the older students, particularly at the start of high school and maybe it will change their outlook on school, friends and how they portray themselves to everyone else.