Look no farther than If I Stay by Gayle Forman. The main character of this novel is Mia, a talented cellist and high school senior. She's just auditioned for Juilliard. She has a cool musician boyfriend a year older whose band is just starting to get noticed on the rock scene. She's got understanding, supportive parents who used to be hippies and an eight-year-old brother who pretty much adores her. The four live in Oregon, and when the book begins, a one-inch "blizzard" has cancelled school so the family decides to take advantage of the unexpected day off to drive over and visit their close friends who have recently had a baby girl. They set off and then on page 14 you read the following: The car is eviscerated. The impact of a four-ton pickup truck going sixty miles an hour plowing straight into the passendger side had the force of an atom bomb. It tore off the doors, sent the front-side passenger seat through the driver's-side window. It flipped the chassis, bouncing it across the road and ripped the engine apart as if it were no stronger than a spiderweb.
So starts the compulsively readable story of Mia, in a car crash with her beloved family, hovering between life and death, and looking back at her past as she tries to decide whether or not to "stay." Keep the tissues handy and don't say I didn't warn you.





