Before I Fall Q2 Benchmark Project

Before I Fall was Lauren Oliver’s first novel, she followed the book with Delirium the first book in a trilogy. The other books in the series include Pandemonium and soon to be published  Requiem. Before I Fall has been thought of as a movie for quite some time, and according to Lauren Oliver’s blog, the film finally has a director and will most likely be released in 2013 or 2014.

The book starts with Samantha Kingston waking up for school on February 12 better known as “Cupid Day” at her school where everyone sends their friends or boyfriend/girlfriend roses. Throughout her daily routine the reader is given snippets of her social life, like the fact that in just a few hours she will lose her virginity to her boyfriend Rob. Two new characters are introduced in the next couple of pages, one is Sam’s best friend Lindsay Edgecombe, the other is Sam’s friend Elody, her third friend Ally comes in later at school. The girls attend school and get their flowers, after school they learn that there is to be a party that night hosted by Kent, a not so popular boy who is in love with Sam. The girls get ready for the party and head over, Sam has the agreement with Rob that they will go to the party and stay for awhile before they leave. At the end of the night Rob becomes completely drunk and falls asleep on the couch, making Sam leave the party with her friends. The girls are driving down the road when it happens, a white flash comes in front of the car and Lindsay screams “shit”, “sight”, or “sit” Sam can’t tell. What she can remember is a horrible sound of metal on metal, the car folding in two. She wakes up the next day, confused to find that it’s February 12th again. This continues for seven days, each day Sam gets closer to finding out why her death happened, who was responsible, and she discovers the true value of everything she is in danger of losing. My favorite character is Izzy Kingston, Sam’s little sister. She is so unaware of social life and doesn’t care what people think of her, I like that, and I wonder why we shed that as we get older. I can’t relate to many of the characters in this story, I can kinda relate to Kent, I’ve sat around and watched people I care about become complete strangers. I’ve watched people I was friends with turn their personality around and become friends with the mean girl.

In my opinion I really liked this book, it was a little predictable but it kept me  going. I wanted to know what would happen to her and all the characters even though I already knew. It was a very unique way of writing a book. I appreciated Lauren Oliver’s view on teenagers and how realistic it was, it had drugs and cheating, but it also had love and friendship. The friendship was what really stood out to me, it showed what it really was, you and your fight sometimes you hate them, but when something happens you see that they care. If I could change one thing, I would change the romance between Sam and Kent, so that it didn’t exist. I think it was sweet but it was so predictable, and I think that they should have become friends not in love. I do recommend this book, it has a nice balance of literature but it can keep a teenager who hates reading involved in the book, and they might enjoy it, and they might not, but at least they will read it and have a good perspective on it.