Wednesday, May 19, 2010

lauren oliver debut.

While reading synopsis of this book, I thought about not even bothering to read it. A story about a popular girl who dies and then keeps reliving the day over and over? Sounds relatively lame to me...

I am really glad that I have the tendency to give every book a fair shot, because I truly fell in love with this story, Before I Fall. 26-year-old Lauren Oliver totally kicked ass in her first novel, if I do say so myself. Our dead girl walking, Sam Kingston lives the life of the popular girl strictly by chance. She was pretty much picked on until the most popular girl in school, Lindsay decided one day to befriend her at a party in middle school. Lindsay is an uber-bitch, unless of course she likes you. Sam, Lindsay and their two other best friends Ally and Elody are seniors in high school and live a pretty care-free and privileged life. They hate people when Lindsay says so, and are the girls everybody loves (to hate). The day that keeps repeating itself is called "Cupid Day" in their school, where everyone buys their friends flower-grams and the more flowers you get the more popular you are.

Sounds very juvenile, but this book is rather juvenile. (But I still don't recommend it for anyone younger than high school age).

Anyways, the four girls head to a party at this boy Kent's house (Kent has been in love with Sam since they were kids, they used to be friends until Sam became popular). He basically has this party because he thinks Sam will show up. The girls get drunk, and when Lindsay drives them home they get into a car accident and Sam feels as though she died. Her alarm wakes her up and she wakes up on Cupid Day....again. I am not really doing this book justice in my explanation, there is so much more to it than simply repeating the day you die. Sam repeats the day seven times in all, and each day she does something different, each night has a different outcome, and the next day she wakes up to Cupid Day all over again. Through this experience she discovers different things about the different people in her life. By the seventh day she is an entirely different person, a changed person, a BETTER person.

I don't want to give any of it away, and I am sorry for sucking at trying to explain, there is just so much going on. You really need to read it and feel it for yourself. It might break your heart a little.

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