Review: BEFORE I FALL by Lauren Oliver

Title: Before I Fall 

Author: Lauren Oliver 

Genre: Young Adult 

Release Date: March 8th, 2016 

 

With this stunning debut novel, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver emerged as one of today's foremost authors of young adult fiction. Like Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why and Gayle Forman's If I Stay, Before I Fall raises thought-provoking questions about love, death, and how one person's life can affect so many others.

For popular high school senior Samantha Kingston, February 12—"Cupid Day"—should be one big party, a day of valentines and roses and the privileges that come with being at the top of the social pyramid. And it is…until she dies in a terrible accident that night.

However, she still wakes up the next morning. In fact, Sam 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 ever imagined.

Named to numerous state reading lists, this novel was also recognized as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, The Daily Beast, NPR, and Publishers Weekly.  

Supports the Common Core State Standards.

 

Before I Fall is NOW a motion picture. Check your local theaters for showtimes and more information. I will link the trailer below. 

Trailer

Amazon Hardcover / Amazon Paperback  / Kindle  / Audible  

"So many things become beautiful when you really look." 

I had heard so many good things about this book when it first came out but I just never picked it up. YA is normally a hit or miss for me, so sometimes I'm very lenient for what I pick up that is young adult. Especially when it's contemporary. 

But after seeing the trailer for this book that was being turned into a movie, seeing the cast, and remembering how much good I had heard about this book...I finally decided to pick it up. And it didn't disappoint. I just wish that I had picked up this book sooner. 

Samantha Kingston has it all. The perfect family, the best of friends, her popularity, and the perfect boyfriend. She has it all. Most people stay clear of her and her friends because one they are popular and two they aren't the nicest people. 

But everything is about to change. February 12th comes on a Friday and it's just a regular day. Cupid Day at her school, one of her favorite days. When you get to show off just how popular you really are by how many roses you get. 

Everything changes that night though when she goes to a party with her friends thinking this is going to be a great night, a special night, but it turns out it's her last night. After her and her friends are in an accident Sam knows she's dead, literally...her life is over. Here's the catch though. 

She wakes up the next morning. On the same day. 

Everything that Sam knows is about to change. Her life is about to get a whole lot more complicated. She must figure out what needs to be done of her or she may just keep living the same day over and over again. 

I loved this book. I loved the dynamic between the characters and how well Lauren Oliver captured the essence of a teenage girl. Though the ending may not have been quiet for me, I loved the story and the progression of her character throughout the book. 

 

 

Lauren Oliver is the New York Times bestselling author of the YA novels Replica, Vanishing Girls, Panic, and the Delirium trilogy: Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. The film rights to both Replica and Lauren’s bestselling first novel, Before I Fall, were acquired by AwesomenessTV; a major motion picture adaptation of Before I Fall was announced by Open Road Films in 2016.

Lauren is also the author of novels for middle grade readers: The Spindlers; Liesl & Po, which was an E. B. White Read Aloud Award nominee; and the Curiosity House series, co-written with H. C. Chester. She has also written one novel for adults, Rooms.

A graduate of the University of Chicago and NYU's MFA program, Lauren Oliver is also the cofounder of content development company Paper Lantern Lit. You can visit her online at www.laurenoliverbooks.com.

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