If I Stay

Content Overview

Overall Content
Severity
2.7

Language

5.3/10

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

1.0/10

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

3.7/10

Violence, Weapons, Blood, Crime

0.2/10

Potentially Intense Themes

3.5/10

**As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases. 

If I Stay

Gayle Forman

Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel.

I open my eyes wide now.
I sit up as much as I can.
And I listen.

Stay, he says.

Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love—music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind?

Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it’s the only one that matters.

If I Stay is a heartachingly beautiful book about the power of love, the true meaning of family, and the choices we all make.

-Excerpt taken from Goodreads.

Check Goodreads to see the book’s ratings.

My Opinion

“If I stay. If I live. It’s up to me.” 

4.5 out of 5 stars (4.5 / 5) You know those books that just hit you? It feels like the book was written just for you? This book. This one is mine. 

Mia is in a tragic accident with her family. Throughout the day afterwards, we follow her through the moments of her life. The ones that stand out and have meaning. 

We see her fall in love. We see her joke with her parents. We see a friendship blossom. We see her passion build for the cello. After reading, I feel I know these people, that I was a part of their lives too. I get to know them intimately and learn why Mia loves them and the experiences they had together to forge that love.

The tragedy that hits is heavy and detailed and hard to read. I’m not one for emotional books, I’m a self-proclaimed “non-crier” (it works for me, don’t give me a speech!) but the writing in this book stirs up all those emotions.

I’ve read this book multiple times but wanted to reread it to get it on my blog. The writing gets me every time. It’s raw and emotional and heart wrenching, but beautiful.

Detailed Content Review

Language 

F***- 10

H***- 5

S***- 14

A**- 4

B****- 5

D***- 5

Bas****-

Religious Cursing

J****- 2

Chr***-

G**- 3

L***-

Derogatory terms etc-

Shitey 

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

A man smokes a pipe. 

A man previously got “wasted” with a “pair of forty ouncers.”

Sometimes a Jewish family has wine with dinner and teens partake. 

A man gets drunk at New Years. 

A day says of his teen daughter is drunk, she’s grounded. She states she only had 1 beer. 

Beers are served at a barbecue. 

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

*Very minor LGBTQ+ aspects included*  

While performing CPR, paramedics expose a young woman’s chest. 

A young woman notes her virginity and not her boyfriends. They’ve kissed but plan on more. 

A young woman “plays” a young man like her cello. He has his shirt off and she slides her bow across his hips. He kisses her deeply and played her like a guitar. Her shirt was off and her pants tugged down low. He plucked and strummed along her chest and belly. They kiss. 

A young married couple get drunk and are less careful that night which ends up being the night they conceive their first child. 

A young mom and dad try for years to conceive a child. She gets pregnant twice but miscarries. 

A young woman kisses her boyfriend “Open-mouthed and sloppy” in front of a crowd. 

A young woman is dating a young woman. 

When a teen gets her first boyfriend, the mom offers to take her to planned parenthood for birth control pills and asks if the boyfriend can get tested for disease. Then gives her daughter money for condoms. 

A young man is gay. 

A young girl watches her mom birth her brother. She’s never seen her mom “frontal” before.

To check for an emergency, a doctor pushes aside a young woman’s hospital gown (she’s naked from the waist down) to check her abdomen. 

A man kisses a young woman, she kisses him back. 

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

Two young girls fist fight at school. They are bloody and bruised but then laugh.

Potentially Intense Themes

**SPOILER** A family is in a terrible car accident. It is very detailed about what happened to the car. There are chunks of brain matter on the road. A woman looks serene except that her lips are turning blue and the whites of her eyes are completely red. A young woman sees her own body. Blood covers her clothes and hair. Her leg is askew and skin has been torn off to the bone. She watches paramedics place a sheet over a man and zip up a woman in a body bag. They talk about why she’s not bloody. 

The book can be very intense at times. The young woman watches her body and her family’s bodies after the crash. She watches them perform medical procedures and people visiting her and more. 

There is a patient at the hospital with a face that looks like half was blown off. 

**SPOILER** A young boy dies from a car crash. His family grieves and describes the pain and emotion in detail. 

A group of teens have a memorial for a teen who died of cancer. 

A man abruptly dies of a brain aneurysm. 

**SPOILER** A young woman has to choose whether to die or not. She’s in a form of limbo and it’s very emotional experiencing her decision.

**As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases. 

6 Comments

  1. Sounds good, I wonder if the medical studf is pretty accurate. I’ll toss a book if it’s medically unrealistic *coughfivefeetapart* and many others

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