Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver : #BookReview

Title: Before I Fall
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published Date: March 2nd 2010
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Death, Realistic Fiction, Paranormal
Format: Audiobook
Length: 12hr 25 min

My Rating: ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 
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: 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.Then 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. 

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

 My Review:

“Here's one of the things I learned that morning: if you cross a line and nothing happens, the line loses meaning. It's like that old riddle about a tree falling in a forest, and whether it makes a sound if there's no one around to hear it.
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.
Or maybe you wouldn't be surprised. Maybe some of you already know."

Please know that suicide and bullying is very prominent in this book. Also drinking, driving happens.

This is a book that I should have loved or at least found to be a guilty pleasure read. Instead the longer I listened the more I got annoyed with the main character and her 'best friends'. Not only were they the typical mean girls of high schools, but they were also extremely careless with their own lives as well, and the fact that they had all made it up until the night of the crash was slightly amazing at times.
While the main character herself was not the head mean girl in charge, she went with everything the leader said, and was afraid to rock the boat in fear of what would happen to her. But even before the night of the crash you could tell Samantha was having trouble doing something of the things they were doing. Sure she still did them, but she was starting to question things, and realizing that there was more than just high school and that they all would be alone soon.
Samantha though also has a bad case of victim blaming instead of realizing that her and her friends were the ones making everything worse by bullying others.
Samantha does start to change and finally grow as time goes on and she keeps reliving the same day and notices things different everyday. You can also tell that she is still somewhat of a mean girl besides the fact that she is trying to change.

This book is very high school, and I think it was fairly realistic with what teenagers think and do. Sure there were times where I feel like the author could have made the characters realize what they were doing wasn't okay, I also feel like if she had then it wouldn't have been realistic. Because lets face it, most of the time none us realize how horrible we were as teenagers until were older and start to see that hey that wasn't okay and wishing we could go back and change certain things.
Having said that though I do wish some smaller little things had happened to the other mean girls and not just Sam. Also the head mean girl in charge was absolutely horrible and really was ruled by fear, but seriously the things she did to her 'best friend' were truly awful and the fact that the ex-bestfriend kept it all hidden just shows how good she really was.

“A good friend keeps your secrets for you. A best friend helps you keep your own secrets.”   

Overall while I don't think this story was for me. I do think it is for people in high school to read so they can see that they aren't alone and that we do have the option to change things.

“I guess that's what saying good-bye is always like--like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you're in the air, there's nothing you can do but let go.”