Full disclosure: I kinda-sorta know the author of this book, Lauren Oliver.
Since reading Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, I’ve stayed away from most novels with the reliving-the-past-learning-to-accept-death theme. Every now and then, a new title does pique my interest–the buzz around Gayle Forman’s If I Stay landed it in my to be read pile (though I’ve been studiously ignoring it every time it gets close to the top) and a few recommendations for Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why ended with me reading all about Hannah over the course of a single night and giving up on the premise again. If Thirteen Reasons is on your TBR pile, this is how I recommend you read it: at home, with an enormous pot of tea, a dozen chocolate bars, a few cushions to throw, and in a single sitting. More on the cushion-throwing in another post.) But when I heard Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall described as The Lovely Bones meets Groundhog Day, I grabbed a copy ASAP. Here’s the publisher’s blurb:
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.
For the most part, I loved Before I Fall. I really did. But…
It takes a huge–HUGE–risk.
For someone to need a second chance, they have to have screwed up their first. For Sam, that means she has to be unlikeable for about fifty pages, which is just under ten percent of the book. If Sam were only a little unlikeable, this probably wouldn’t be such a big deal. But she’s not–she’s Mean Girls mean, a popular girl with a catty group of friends who enjoy making other people’s lives miserable.
Sam’s meanness is (tentatively) balanced by small glimpses of vulnerability–she doesn’t know why her best friend, Lindsay, suddenly attached to her in 7th grade, and she feels guilty for how she ditches her little sister when rushing out the door. But these flashes alone weren’t enough to keep me reading. If it hadn’t been for the glowing recommendations, I’d probably have set the book aside and forgotten about it until the next time some heaven/angel lit crossed my feed reader.
Here’s the thing, though: I wouldn’t have loved Before I Fall without the risk. If Sam had been nicer, or more relatable, more something else, the whole story would have fallen apart. And that would have been a great loss, because Before I Fall is the poster book for character growth and development. Over 470 pages, Sam grows from a girl with almost no redeeming features to someone you wish you knew. Which begs the question: how much time should we devote to a novel before giving up? And do recommendations and reviews play a part in the deciding?
Before I Fall makes an excellent case for not giving up on a book. And once upon a time, I did finish everything I started (else I’d never have made it to the end of Elizabeth Bunce’s A Curse Dark As Gold, Michael Scott’s The Alchemyst or Michael Buckley’s first Sisters Grimm book (though they’re growing on me).) But, as Nathan Bransford points out, reading habits change, and I simply can’t afford to read books I don’t connect with anymore. I have little enough time to read books I love; why would I waste my down time on books I can’t get into, with characters I can’t relate to?
Despite knowing that giving a story time to find its way can be very worthwhile, I really can’t do it for every book. So here’s my plan for the moment:
a) give books ’til the 75 page mark to grab me;
b) check reviews to see if a book “starts out slow;”
c) ask my trusted YA reading friends; and
d) consider the marketing push/”bigness” of the book.
D is a bit of a cop out, I know, but reading and writing in the YA world–in any book world, really–requires getting to know the bad stuff as well as the good. Here’s hoping it works, and I don’t miss any of the really great reads out there.
But there’s another reason the Oliver’s big fat fifty page risk is a big deal: actually getting the book into print. Most agents and editors ask for between ten and fifty pages on submission, not a whole manuscript. Which makes me think Oliver must have had a killer synopsis while shopping the book around. Or that perhaps Sam was more likeable, and an editor or agent had her beef up the badness. (I prefer the synopsis idea, though!)
Do you finish everything? How do you make the call on whether to keep reading or give up?
