REVIEW: Before I Fall

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Published: October 25th 2010 by HarperCollins

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Realistic Fiction

Pages: 496 pages

Format: Paperback
Rating: 5/10
Description: For popular high school senior Samantha Kingston, February 12—"Cupid Day"—should be one big party, a day of valentines and roses and the privileges that come with being at the top of the social pyramid. And it is…until she dies in a terrible accident that night. However, she still wakes up the next morning. In fact, Sam lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she ever imagined.

Hm. What a roller-coaster YA read!

The Characters? Honestly? I hated them. Especially, but not exclusively, in the beginning portion of the novel. I did not relate nor did I find any sort of remorse for these characters. I just got angry at the shallow, horrible, stereotypical popular high school girl protagonists and her similar friends.
They were also not too believable. I am a girl in high-school, and I've dealt with my fair share of mean girls. The blatant abuse and cruelty that Lindsay and the others committed is just not believable and it made it angry. Half of a school screaming "PHYSCO" at one girl who peed her pants is something out of a bad Teen Disney movie (I know that's not why they were screaming physco but that's essentially why she was ostracized in the first place). Not good.
HOWEVER, as the story progressed the characters did improve albeit only slightly. We got to see more dimensions from some characters and back stories, ect. This did help me care about the story more, but this was towards the end. For the majority of the book, I was frustrated at the characters. I loved Kent, hated Rob, hated hated HATED Lindsay, ect.

The Setting? Typical high school in a small town. The names for some of the areas in the high school were super relate-able and funny. For example, there's always that one restroom that no one goes to, and there's an area that is "designated" for smokers. I really did love Kent's house and it's descriptors.

The Plot? It was fairly slow and I rolled my eyes at some of the absolute mundane problems that high school girls often encounter. However, again, as the storyline progressed and the characters gained some depth, the plot did as well. It was super interesting to see how the series of circumstances changed. I genuinely felt a sense of loss every time the day rewound. I quite enjoyed the ended, I felt it was necessary for someone to die, and I was glad it ended that way.

Overall? I didn't really know what to expect before reading. Before I Fall isn't the greatest young adult novel I've read, but it was unique and stands out from other YA reads. While I personally was frustrated with the mostly one-dimensional characters and the fairly teeny bopper esque plot line, I was intrigued with the novel. I ended up reading this in one day. It's a very easy read despite it's bigger size.

Riley Rewind, because of it's extremely similar premise. Riley has the ability to change back time, much like in Before I Fall.
Riley, like Samantha Kingston, wants everything to be set right.
Riley Rewind is a great online series, it's on YouTube, so go check it out!
Watch RILEY REWIND.
(**Spoiler**: Also, both Riley and Sam are trying to stop someone from committing an inevitable suicide).

Groundhog Day because of the whole same-day-repeating-over-and-over thing.


Mean Girls because Before I Fall is chock full of mean girls that do cruel things to one another. There's also a fair share of humor, cliques, high school culture, ect. in both stories.