Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

The story began with the death of our lead character, Sam. For a week, she had to relive her last days on the planet which meant dying for 7 times. Within those days, stories about the people who were connected to her unfolded right before her eyes, things she didn’t give much thought about before that changed the way she liver her remaining days.

The very likable thing about Before I Fall is its authenticity and truthfulness. For readers who’s gotten past school already like me, I’m pretty sure they felt nostalgic after this book. High school is such a horrible phase for many to recount that to read this book is a walk through hell once again. But for me, this book conjured so much memories – painful and happy and funny ones – that it evoked wistful emotions in me about the past. Lauren Oliver highlighted the different personalities of contemporary high school – the bully and the bullied, the school jocks, the popular and the non-existent, the straight A’s and the I-don’t -give-a-damn ones, etc. She so boldly created her characters without pretensions that it’s hardly difficult to correlate it with reality.

In addition to this, the dialogues were fantastic. I wonder how old Lauren Oliver is because she’s totally an expert in teen talk and urban slang. I enjoyed reading the hilarious exchange of conversation as I realized what an old bumpkin I am. I shamelessly admit I was utterly clueless on some of the words used.

“It was a yes or no question, doofus”

And to some, I end up cracking in laughter.

“No glove, no love”

“..if you want to be a walking STD farm”

For these, my rating for this book would have to be:

I know you’re like “if you love it so much, why drop one star?” Well, the ending didn’t appeal so much to me. I’ve been reading her 7 day-adventure as a wanderer on that terrible world and I waited for so long how all the crazy events would conclude. My excitement progressed in a positive linear motion throughout the story and it plopped in the end leaving me feeling MEH. My face was literally crunched in confusion because I had a lot of questions unanswered. I don’t want to enumerate them and trouble you with the spoilers. All I wanted to say that though this book fortified me with so much wisdom, there’s something lacking about it too.

So anyway, I’d like to show the movie/drama characters I remember while reading this book. Yeah high school flicks were my thing back then.. and maybe even now.

1. Sam Kingston and her bunch of bitch buddies – Regina George, Cady Heron, Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith from the Mean Girls. Looks, popularity, hot boyfriend, who wouldn’t remember the Plastiks?
2. Kent Fuller – Dennis Cooverman from I love you Beth Cooper. He harbors a secret infatuation to a hot popular girl and hosted a party just so he could talk to her.
3. Juliet Sykes – Jimmy Edwards from One Tree Hill. Remember him? The bullied guy who set the school shut and threatened to gun everyone trapped?

I’m still trying to extract from my head the other characters I thought about while reading this so I’ll probably edit this the moment I remember them 😀