“The more the world shoved us together, the more we shoved back--- and against each other.” (Forman 70)

“...she stands out in the hospital lobby like an ostrich in a chicken coop.” (Forman 138-139)

“Brooke licks her bee-stung lips.” (Forman 140)

“Lately, he’s had a thing for Reader’s Digest.” (Forman 31)

“Over and over he is saying: please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.” (Forman 198)

Meaning: In the book, Mia’s cello represents her love for classical music. Her whole family and all of her friends are more into rock/pop music. This shows that Mia doesn’t care what people think. If it’s something that makes you happy, then you should keep doing it. Playing the cello is the only way for Mia to express how she’s feeling. 

Significance to the novel: In the novel, Mia gets into a nasty car crash where she has to spend a lot of time in the hospital. While she’s in a coma, she is dreaming about what has happened in her life. She tells the audience many stories about how the cello has impacted her life. She explained the different times when she played at recitals and other events. 

Symbol: Car Radio

Meaning: The car radio in this book represents how much Mia’s family loves music. Each person in her family likes to listen to something completely different. Even after an accident happened involving their car, the radio still played which showed how important and how much music impacted their everyday lives. 

Significance to the novel: At the beginning of If I Stay Mia explains that on road trips, her family can never agree on what station to listen to on the radio. They were on their way to their friend’s house, when the family got into a terrible crash. The car was completely totaled, but the radio was still playing to show how important music was to the family. This was shown more throughout the novel as Mia told stories about how much music was in their lives.
Symbol: “Waiting for Vengeance” lyrics

Meaning: “I’m not choosing But I’m running out of fight.” (Forman 190) This is a lyric in the song Waiting for Vengeance that Mia’s father had written before the kids had been born. Mia brought this story up about when she sang this song around the house, while she was in the emergency room. I believe that she was foreshadowing that she is starting to feel like she should stop fighting for her life. 

Significance to the novel: Throughout the novel, Mia talks a lot about how she was a very responsible teenager. Because her parents didn’t always act like parents, she would take care of little brother, Teddy. These song lyrics were never that significant until Mia started sing Waiting for Vengeance to him. When Mia’s father would hear her sing, he was delighted. It was kind of like he felt an instant connection with Mia.

This is significant to the book because Mia and Kim were really good friends and their parents wouldn’t let them go to each other’s houses. It also shows that even though they were good friend's sometimes your parents don't understand what friendship is with another person. 

This quote is similar to Romeo and Juliet. Since Romeo and Juliet’s parents don’t know that they are married. If they did know that they were married and were friends they definitely will do anything in their power to keep them away from each other. 

This shows how her parents are rebels and do things that aren’t always the right way to do it. Since Mia’s parents are in a band and had children at a younger age, they still continue to live there lives as young adults. 

This reminds me of Romeo and Juliet and how Nurse in the play sneaks Juliet around so that she can get married and hang out with Romeo. Even though the Nurse isn’t Juliet’s mother, she still raised her and cared for Juliet when she was little. The nurse is like a rebel like Mia’s parents. 

When Adam and Mia spend time together they are always connecting to each other and having their relationship grow. This quote shows the connection between the two and how much love they have for each other. 

The connection between Adam and Mia is like the connection between Romeo and Juliet. Each of their love is so powerful between one another they are all happy as can be. The love between the two main characters of each story makes the story so powerful. Their love keeps pushing the other to their limits. 

This quote explains how Mia’s two best friends don’t like each other and they won’t get to know each other. Mia tries everything to get the two to talk to each other and have them all be able to do things as a group, and Mia not having to spend separate time with each person. It is significant to the book because Mia always tried to get her friends to come together, and when she was in the hospital her two friends came together to stay with her as long as they could. 

In Speak, Heather and Melinda are friends, and they would always eat lunch together. When Heather met “The Marthas” she started to not eat lunch with Melinda. On days that Melinda would eat lunch with Heather and “The Marthas” Heather would try to convince or talk about how good and fun of a person Melinda is. “The Marthas’’ wouldn’t agree and would be rude to Melinda. 

Mia is literally on her death bed. She can decide whether or not she want to give up or not. The only thing is she doesn’t know how or if she should. She is letting life take her whichever way it wants too. 

Letting life do its thing is what Melinda kinda did when she didn’t know what to do when Rachelle came around. Melinda didn’t have a plan or anything she just did what she felt life needed her to do. Then, Heather was the total opposite. She had a plan for everything, and whenever it didn’t go as planned she would go to Melinda and ask for help. 

We have been reading your book, If I Stay for our English project. We chose to read this book because it seemed like a book that teenagers could easily relate to. The main character, Mia, was described as a normal teenage girl with a few extra problems to deal with. We thought this would be a good choice because everyone has problems they have to face and it’s good to know that others might have it worse than something small we might be going through.

We really enjoyed reading If I Stay. This book had really good imagery, I could imagine almost exactly what was happening throughout the book. There were a few parts that were pretty sad, and you did a very nice job describing those situations. One time in particular when Mia was realizing what actually happened to her family. While I was reading that part, I got a little teary-eyed because it was so real.  A few parts of the book were a little confusing though. When Mia was going back and forth from remembering stories to real life in the hospital,  I wasn’t always quite sure if it was in her head or not. 

In the book If I Stay, Mia was a cellist who knew a lot about music. We found out that you, Gayle Forman, not only never played the cello, but you never played an instrument and never really liked classical music. We also found out that some things that happened throughout the book had a relation to your life. 

To conclude this letter, we would like to say that your book was like none that I’ve read before. The second book is definitely something that I would want to read in the future. I do have a question though, is the second book a new story or the continued of If I Stay?

Sincerely,

Abby Otterness and Kira Frisbie

Something undecidable is whether to live or not. Mia has to decide if she should live. It can be a decision, but it also isn’t a decision. Your body has to decide not your mind. Mia has a hard time processing that while she is in hospital.

This is saying if she chooses to stay or if she chooses to die, either way, both are bad. Mia kinda wants to give up because she is sick of fighting, and why to live if your whole family is dead anyways. She also wants to stay for Adam and her Grandparents. She doesn’t want to lose, but either way, she does. 

Mia is in love with Adam. This poem states that when you found love that you should just let it be and take its course. Mia thinks the same. She thinks that everything in life you should let it be and not ruin it. Mia even says in the book to let love be and let it take its course. 

Haiku's~
~Family I go 

Or with the living I stay 

I may never know 

~I awake at last 

To see the love of my life

Kissing my sweet hand.