Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Title: Before I Fall

Author: Lauren Oliver

Publisher: Harper
Release Date: October 25, 2010

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

They say to live every as if it’s your last--but you never actually think it’s going to be. You always think you have more time.

That’s what I thought. But I was wrong.

The thing is, you don’t get to know when it happens. you don’t remember to tell your family that you love them or--in my case--remember to say goodbye to them at all.

What if, like me, you could live your last day over again? Could you make it perfect? If you whole life flashed before your eyes, would you have any regrets? Are there things you’d want to change?

I had heard so many good things about Lauren Oliver and her debut novel Before I Fall but didn’t pick it up until quite recently. Let me just say that I was completely blown away by the story. I just couldn’t get enough and kept wanting more even after I was finished with it. Not only that, but the story had me feeling a whole range of emotions, going from wanting to laugh one minute to wanting to cry the next.

When Sam wakes up on Cupid Day, everything is looking up. She’s going to be with her friends, getting plenty of roses, and most important she’s finally going to be doing IT with her boyfriend. As the day goes on, everything seems to be normal until the very end. Driving home from a party with her three best friends Ally, Elody and Lindsay, Sam gets into a car accident and as far as she knows she’s dead...until she wakes up the next morning and finds out she’s living the same day over again. Maybe this time she’ll be able to save herself.

At first I really didn’t think I was going to be able to like Sam. She was pretty much the girl I would have hated had we gone to the same high school. She just came across as really superficial and liked she only cared about herself and her own little world. But that quickly changed. As she found herself reliving the same day over and over again, Same changes and evolves. I found myself liking her more and more and by the end of the book, I really loved her. Her friends I really didn’t take to on the other hand. They had their moments but for the most part they just annoyed me. Same goes for Rob. I’m not exactly sure what Sam saw in him. Kent I was rooting for all along, he was just genuinely a good guy. Too bad it took so long for Sam to realize it.

The story itself wasn’t entirely what I had expected it to be. I knew going in that I would be reading the same day over again but it still surprised me. Even though I was always reading about the same day, it was never actually the same as there was a different storyline going on each time. Throughout the whole book I never really had any idea as to how it would all turn out at the end of that last day. I was constantly surprised by what was happening and my heart broke at the end of every single one of those days.

To be honest, this book took me entirely by surprise. Despite everything I had heard about it, I still had my doubts just because it would be very difficult for the book to live up to my expectations. Lauren Oliver is a phenomenal writer and I never would have guessed this was her first novel had I not been told. I very much look forward to getting Delirium and being able to read more of her wonderful stories.