If I stay
By Gayle Forman
Oregon
Where Mia is from. And where the book is based throughout most of the book
Mia's family
Dad as driver, Mom in the passenger seat, and Mia and Teddy in the back.
Mia's family
Dad,Mom,Mia,Teddy plus Mia's Gran and Gramps
Mia
Mia playing her cello
Adam and Mia
Adam and Mia together
Adam
Adam playing with his band
The snow day plans
Mia and her family live in Oregon. Mia(age17), her little brother Teddy(age 8), and her father( a teacher who works for the school district that Mia and Teddy go to) have a day off from school do to and inch snow fall overnight. Mia's mother ( who works for a travel agent) decides to take the day off because everyone else in her family has the day off. So the whole family decides to go on a family trip to visit two of Mia's parents old bandmates who are also close friends. The two bandmates/friends are Henry, Willow and their new baby. On the way back from Henry and Willow's they decide to stop by Book Barn(which is an old book store) for 5cent records that they have stashed in the the back that nobody except Mia buys. At the end of their journey they decide to stop by Mia's grandparents house for an early dinner. Then Mia's dad will take her to Portland for Shooting Star's concert.
A road block in their plans
But, as soon as they get into the car, they hit a road block and that road block is what radio station to listen to during the trip. Mia's mom wants NPR (a news station), Mia's dad wants to listen to Frank Sinatra, Teddy wants Spongebob Squarepants, and Mia wants the classical-music station but science she is the only classical music fan in her family she is willing to compromise for Shooting Star which is a band her boyfriend Adam is in. So Mia's dad came up with a compromise that will the depute for what cannel to listen between the four of them. Science it is a snow day NPR first, the classical-music station, then either Jonathan Richman or Spongebob. After the music selections are made up they set out for Henry and willow's.
The journey begins
There are some patches of snow on the road but that doesn't matter because the roads are always wet in Oregon.so Mia's mom used to joke that it was when the road was dry that people ran into trouble. Mia's mom also said "they get cocky,throw caution to the wind, drive like assholes. The cops have a field day doling out speeding tickets"(page14 paragraph 3 or 2). After NPR is over, the classical station is turned on.
Disaster strikes
They only hear the first few bars of Beethoven's cello sonata no.3 (which Mia was supposed to be practicing that day), when their car is eviscerated do too the impact of a four-ton pick up truck going 60 miles per hour plowing into the passenger side of their car. The impact of the pick up truck slamming into their car tore off the doors, sent the front side passenger seat through the drivers side window, flipped the chassis sending it bouncing it across the road and ripped the car engine apart. It also tossed the wheels and hubcaps deep into the forest, bits of the gas tan, so now tiny flame sleep at the wet road. Then everything went quiet, except for Beethoven's cello sonata no.3 still playing.
The aftermath of the accident
The next thing Mia knows she's standing in a ditch on the side of the road. Mia goes looking for her family to see if they were ok. The first person she finds is her dad who's brains are scattered along the road. The second person she finds is here mom who has no blood on her, her lips are blue already, the whites of her eyes are completely red, and that's when Mia realizes that her mom was killed instantly because she was hit first which softened the blow for the others. Mia started panicking because she couldn't find Teddy she starts thinking to herself " I need to find Teddy! Where is he?"(page 17). She finds Teddy by the ditch where she came from and see a hand sticking up. So Mia calls out to her little brother "Teddy! I'm right here! Reach up. I'll pull you out"(page 17). When Mia gets closer to her brother, she sees a metal glint from a silver bracelet with a tiny cello and guitar that Adam gave her for her 17th birthday which she was wearing that morning and now. Then Mia realizes that is not Teddy lying there it was her. She's lying on the edge of the road with her leg hanging down into the ditch. After realizing that it's her lying there not Teddy, she looks at her motionless body and think to herself "the blood from my chest has seeped through my shirt,skirt, and sweater, and is now pooling like paint drops on the virgin snow. One of my legs is askew, the skin and muscle peeled away so that I can see white streaks of bone. My eyes are closed, and my dark brow hair is wet and rusty with blood"(page17 and18). The worst part is that she can't find Teddy and she thinks this is all a dream and starts to scream into the chilly air "No! Stop. Please stop. Please wake up" (page 18). She try's pinching herself to try to wake up but it doesn't work. So she try's scramming again thinking that it is a really bad nightmare but this time she screams "wake up! Wake up! Wakeupwakeupwakeup!"(page 18). But that doesn't work either so she asks herself "Am I dead?"(page 19).
Help is on the way
The paramedics arrive with the police and the fire department. Someone has put a sheet over Mia's dad and a fireman has zipped Mia's mom into a plastic bag. The fireman that zipped Mia's mom into the plastic bag was discussing it with a younger fireman. The older one explained that she was probably hit first and killed instantly, explaining the lack of blood. "Immediate crardiac arrest," he says, "when your heart can't pump blood, you don't really bleed. You seep"(page 19 &20). The thought of her mother seeping disturbs Mia so much that she can't even think about it. Mia's body is now surrounded by men and women performing frantic ablutions over her and plugging her veins. The police are redirecting traffic so that people can go where they need to be. But some people pull over to the side of the road and get out of their cars to appraise the scene. A medic has snaked a tube down Mia's throat, attached to the tube is a bag with a bulb to it. After the medic snaked the tube down Mia's throat she started pumping the bag. The load Mia into the ambulance and the nice medic climbed into the back with Mia. The nice medic pumps the bag connected to the tube with one and which the other hand she adjusts Mia's IV and her monitors. Then the medic smoothes a lock of Mia's hair from from her forehead then tells Mia "you hang in there" (page 22). When the ambulance gets to the nearest hospital the medics rush Mia inside as fast as they could. Then once they get insi de of the hospital the nice medic screams "I think we've got a collapsed lung get a chest tube in her and move her out!" (Page 27). The doctors and nureses rush Mia into a small room with very bright lights. A doctor dabs orange stuff on the side of Mia's chest then he rams a small plastic tube into Mia. Another doctor shines a flashlight into Mia's eye. "Nonresponsive," the doctor tells the nurse. Then a nurse yells "the choppers here, get her to trauma now!" They rush Mia out of the ER and into the elevator. The elevator opens right onto the roof, the hatch on the helicopter opens and the stretcher with Mia on It is loaded into the helicopter.
To the next hospital
The helicopter hits an air pocket but the Mia who is a bystander doesn't feel anything and neither does the Mia on the stretchers when they arrive at the new hospital in Portland (which is also where Adams's bad is playing that night) Mia finds out that there is a lot of stuff wrong with her. She has a collapsed lung, a ruptured spleen, internal bleeding of unknown origin. And the most serious the contusions on her brain. She also has broken ribs. abrasions on her legs, which will require cosmetic sergury- but that is only if she is lucky. And she is in some kind of state of mind. The doctors take Mia into an operating room that is small and crowded. Full of blinding bright lights, which highlight how grubby this hospital is. The floor, though buffed shiny, is dingy with scuff marks and rust streaks which bystander Mia thinks is old blood stains.
On the road to recovery
They moved Mia out of the recovery room and into the ICU. Mia has two nurses that check in on her along with the endless rounds of doctors. Mia is getting better but she still has a lot of tubes attached to her still. There is one down her throat breathing for her; on down her nose, keeping her stomach empty; one in her vein, hydrating her; one in her bladder, peeing for her; several on her chest, recording heartbeat; another on her finger, recording her pulse. No one has been in to see Mia aside from the doctors and nurses and Mia's social worker who tells Mia's grandparents that she is in " grave" condition. The social worker tells Mia's grandparents to call relatives to come and support mia. But Mia doesn't want to see anyone the only person she wants to see is Adam. The waiting starts getting crowded but still no Adam. Mia is happy to see her best friend Kim. Bystander Mia stands over the other Mia. Her skin is gray. her eyes are taped shut, and she wishes someone would take the tape off because it looks like it itches.
Kim
Mia's best friend.
Mia
Mia in the hospital( from if I stay movie).
Adam
Adam came to visit Mia. "I'm still here and I'm crazy in love with you...please...stay"(Adam from the movie if I stay).
Why I enjoyed this book
I enjoyed this book because it tolled Mia's past and what was going on during the main story which happened in the hospital in the ICU and during the car accident. This book was different than other books because the sick to the main story and don't tell the past of the main character or the other characters.