Brief Summary: A girl has an out of body experience after she was in a car accident with her family. She thinks about the cello and her boyfriend. A lot.
Genre: Contemporary YA
Warnings: Just a gal standing between life and death. Not really much in way of warnings that I could see.
Review:
Setting
The majority of this book takes place in Mia’s memories. She’s in what I would think is a type of coma (I’m guessing at that). She’s unresponsive to the people around her but her, I suppose, spirit is standing around watching people. Her spirit can also travel around away from her body. So, while there are scenes that takes place in the hospital, each scene in the hospital leads to a memory Mia has. It’s easy to follow along from the past and the present. The author does a good job of grounding you in the time and place even when it changes.
Characters
Mia is the main character and she’s fairly fleshed out. She has a love of classical music, her cello, and the relationships with people around her. Her parents and her boyfriend, Adam, are talked a lot in ways of music. Her parents are well rounded and their transition from rockers to more tame members of society was intriguing. The story, especially going back into the memories, lends itself to being very character centered. Oddly, the characters I found flat were Mia’s boyfriend and her brother. They were okay but there wasn’t a lot that was memorable nor which stood out. Adam has a love of music and Mia. And her brother is a baby in a lot of the memories and when she does focus her memories on him, he’s put as a generic kid.
Plot
The overarching plot is whether Mia will choose to stay or to go. Now, I could argue with that mindset but I won’t. At least, not in this post. What I will say instead is it’s thought provoking and a little bit Lifetime-y. (I saw there is a movie and am interested to watch it.) The side plots such as Mia learning to play the cello, feeling like the odd person out of her family, and her relationship with Adam weaved together nicely. There were not any glaring plot holes that I could see. My favorite side plot is between Mia and her best friend, Kim. How they hated each other at first and then when they come together as friends.
Overall
It was a weird mix of feel good and make me sad when I read this book. I liked it. The thing that bothered me the most was the whole “She chooses whether she stays or goes” and that’s, you know, the plot. But it didn’t bother me enough for me not to like this book.
Rating: 4/5
May you get lost in a book,
Chrissy
unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I think it may be because it mostly fell like a long backstory. Glad to hear you did enjoy it:)