Please don’t shoot me, but I engaged in this series completely backwards.

First, I watched the movie of the first book, If I Stay.  By the way, I loved the movie.  I absolutely fell in love with the two main characters.  A rockstar teenage boy falls for a classical cellist girl.   Their preference for music styles may differ greatly, but their intense study of their craft unites them.  I cried – a lot.  Sometimes you just need a good cry.   (I had never even heard of the book before I saw the movie.)

If you recall, the song Say Something was the dramatic song that goes along with If I Stay.  It was re-recorded by Christina Aguilera and A Great Big World in November 2013.

Recently, I was thrilled when I was going through some book lists and found out that If I Stay was in fact a book.   Better yet, I found out that it had a sequel, Where She Went.  This story picks up where the first story left off.  I admit that I have yet to read the first book, I just saw the movie, so this isn’t an apples for apples comparison.  I have to say, I really liked the second story better.  The story seemed to flow better.  Also, I didn’t feel quite as emotionally drained as when I saw If I Stay.  I ABSOLUTELY LOVED how the author ended this series.

I also want to mention that I listened to the audiobook for Where She Went.  As I have mentioned before, I’m not a huge fan of audiobooks in general.  But the narration done by Dan Bittner was PHENOMENAL!

If you liked the movie, as much as me, YOU HAVE TO READ WHERE SHE WENT!!

Indonesian Covers for the Series – LOVE THIS!

 to Gayle Forman!