If I Stay

If I Stay is a young adult novel by Gayle Forman published in 2009. The story follows 17-year-old Mia Hall as she deals with the aftermath of a catastrophic car accident involving her family. Mia is the only member of her family to survive, and she finds herself in a coma. Through this coma, however, Mia has an out-of-body experience. Through this, she is able to watch the actions around her, as close friends and family gather at the hospital where she is being treated. The book follows Mia's stories and the unfolding of her life through a series of flashbacks. Mia finds herself stuck between two worlds: the world of the living, and the world of those who have moved on. Mia realizes that she must use her past and her relationships to make a decision for her future. Her options are to stay with her grandparents and her boyfriend, Adam, and move on and avoid the pain of living without her mother, father, and little brother. The novel received positive reviews from the young adult audience, and Summit Entertainment optioned it in December 2010, for a 2014 film adaptation. A novel continuing Mia's story, Where She Went, was published in April 2011. Plot 17-year-old Mia Hall is an aspiring concert cellist living in Portland, Oregon with her parents and younger brother Teddy. When school is closed one day on account of the snowy weather, the family decides to go for a morning drive, but ice on the roads causes their car to swerve into another lane, where a car crashes into theirs. Mia awakens to find the bodies of her parents, who have died upon impact. Mia comes across her own severely injured body and realizes she is having an out of body experience. She follows her physical body to the hospital, where she watches her extended family rushing to take care of her while her best friend Kim and her boyfriend Adam struggle to reach the hospital. She also watches as doctors struggle to revive Teddy, who eventually succumbs to his injuries. Through her experience, Mia reflects on her life, reminiscing about the development of her relationship with Adam, the development of her passion and talent for playing the cello, and the obstacles of being a teenager who feels out of place no matter where she goes. Mia struggles to decide whether she will awaken from the coma to be with her remaining family and Adam, or whether to join her parents and Teddy in death.