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Summary
Summary
Like Adam Silvera's They Both Die at the End and Colleen Hoover's It Ends with Us, Before I Fall raises thought-provoking questions about love, death, and how one person's life can affect so many others. With this stunning debut novel, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver emerged as one of today's foremost authors of young adult fiction.
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.
Before I Fall is now a major motion picture Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, and Kian Lawley. Named to numerous state reading lists, the novel was also recognized as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Daily Beast, NPR, and Publishers Weekly.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
In the blink of an eye, popular high school student Samantha Kingston loses her life. What should have been a fantastic day turns out to be the beginning of a horrific afterlife experience. In the wake of a fiery car crash, Sam wakes up on Friday, February 12-again and again and again, as she relives that fatal day seven times. Sarah Drew narrates Lauren Oliver's powerful debut novel (HarperCollins, 2010), brilliantly bringing Sam to life and capturing her transformation from a mean and reckless teen into a thoughtful, caring young woman. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Beautiful, popular Samantha and her three best friends are the ruthless queen bees of their high school. But Samantha is living a nightmare: throughout the book, she relives the day of her death seven times, with some dramatic alterations and revelations depending on her choices-ditching school to spend time with her younger sister or, on a day when life's rules have all but lost their meaning, seducing a teacher. She faces the often tragic consequences of even the smallest acts, awakens to the casual cruelties all around her, and tries to get things right and maybe even redeem herself. If this sounds too much like a Groundhog Day-style plot, make no mistake: evocative of Jenny Downham's Before I Die, Oliver's debut novel is raw, emotional, and, at times, beautiful ("It amazes me how easy it is for things to change," Samantha thinks. "how easy it is to start off down the same road you always take and wind up somewhere new"). Samantha's best friends are funny, likable, and maddening, but readers will love Samantha best as she hurtles toward an end as brave as it is heartbreaking. Ages 14-up. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
On her way home from a drunken party, Samantha Kingston is killed in a car accident. Except...she wakes up the next day. For the next week, in fact, she relives the last day of her life. Popular Sam and her three friends Lindsay, Elody, and Ally rule the school, drink, smoke, cut classes, have casual sex, ridicule others, and never seem to care about anything but themselves. But as Sam tries each relived day to put things right, she reveals hints of the wounded girls behind the masks, and the listener begins, just a little, to care about them. Giving the girls bitchy, breathy voices and allowing Sam's emotional growth to show through, Sarah Drew is spot-on with this performance. Her pacing, voice-level changes, and slight character differentiations combine to create a compelling story of a mean girl who learns some life lessons...a bit too late. angela j. reynolds (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
When your novel's heroine opens the story as a popular, mean highschooler, the story will be one of two things: a paean to Dolce Gabbana or a tale of redemption. Sam's story is of the latter kind: a Groundhog Daystyle repeated day she must relive until she gets it right. With each repeat, she changes something in her relationshipsto her family, to the cruelty of her queen-bee friends, to her lecherous boyfriend, to the hot math teacher and to the countless nerds, dorks and freaks she's always abused or ignored. If she can just get it right, Sam thinks, she'll be freed from her loop and can move on with her life. Within this predictable framework Oliver builds a quietly lyrical story of selfhood and friendship, avoiding the obvious paths out of the time loop. Bill Murray's Groundhog Day character used his repeated day to learn French; Sam, more valuably, learns that life's composed of "little gaps and jumps and stutters that can never be reproduced." Unexpectedly rich. (Fantasy. 12-15) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
If you could relive your last day, what would you do differently? This is what Samantha asks herself when, after a fatal accident driving from a party on Friday, she wakes in her bed to find she must repeat the entire day again. And again. As Samantha lives through multiple Fridays, desperate to prevent her death, she is struck by how even the most insignificant acts, like running late for school instead of being on time, can change everything. Suddenly she is noticing uncomfortable things about her friends, about herself she has never noticed before. It's the ultimate learning experience, and it takes Samantha seven times not to save her own life but to leave with one she can be proud of. Oliver, in a pitch-perfect teen voice, explores the power we have to affect the people around us in this intensely believable first novel. Samantha grows from an entitled, popular, yet insecure girl to one with the compassion and guts to make the right decisions. This is a compelling book with a powerful message that will strike a chord with many teens.--Hutley, Krista Copyright 2009 Booklist