If I Stay by Gayle Forman

This summer I started on a "I HAVE to read all these books that are going to be movies" spree. It was so fun for me, but for my fiance that had to go see all the movies with me afterwards, it was not fun. This was basically me and he hated me for it:

And then, when he hated the movie, I could tell him that you know what? It was nothing like the book, so you have to read the book too. I tell him this all the time, and he doesn't believe me. I also tell him: 

Every book lover knows that last part. Never EVER judge a book by its movie. I can't think of a single book that was not as good as the movie was. Okay, end rant about book adaptations into movies. 

My spree started with If I Stay this summer. This book was pretty amazing and well written. It was very sad at the beginning and the whole story made me really appreciate my family and friends all that much more. It starts out with Mia losing her entire family in a horrific car crash and then chronicles her story from there. For a lot of the book, it's Mia looking down over her body in the hospital and remembering happier times in the past with her family and friends. The whole concept of "if I stay" is whether or not Mia is going to stay with her body, or move on to the after-life with the rest of her family. The title, if nothing else, was brilliant and I loved that. Another thing I enjoyed was that even though the premise of the book was so sad and tragic, the author found ways to incorporate some funny things and at times I was laughing out loud because of the book. The whole time I was rooting for her to continue to follow her dreams no matter what, because that's what her parents would have wanted her to do. 

Overall, this is a great book and even though I thought it was going to be really dramatic and heavy material, I loved that the author made some parts of it light and uplifting. I would definitely recommend this! I also love this quote from the book: 

Buy it here on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Quick Review:
Title: If I Stay

Author: Gayle Forman

Pages: 304
Recommended for: Young adult girls

Summer House with Swimming Pool

I'll start off by saying I wasn't sure how much I was going to like this book. It had a very interesting summary and synopsis to read, however, when I started, I was not a fan of the characters. The first part of the book was fantastic. The characters were intriguing and I was really looking forward to this becoming a page turner. However, all of the plot "twists" were predictable and towards the second half of the book I was finding myself becoming more repulsed by the characters and having a general distaste towards the book. 

The main character, Marc Schlosser is a pretty well known and successful doctor in the Netherlands. The story begins after one of Dr. Schlosser's patients, who is a fairly well-known actor on a new HBO series, Ralph Meier dies. Dr. Schlosser comes under scrutiny because this terminal condition developed in Meier while in Schlosser's care and a possible misdiagnosis could have caused Meier's death. The story does flashbacks, setting the scene and letting us in on Meier and Schlosser's relationship and how their families shared a vacation together at a beach house.   The book takes a look at how Ralph was treated, if it was correct or if he was misdiagnosed from the beginning and how that fateful vacation could have caused everything. 

Overall, this book was fantastic at the beginning, but could have easily been 50 pages shorter with the story wrapping up quicker and making it an easier read. 

Buy it at Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

copyright Herman Koch 2014

Quick Review:

Title: Summer House with Swimming Pool

Author: Herman Koch more information on him click here.

Pages:400

Recommended for: Adults

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.