Book Review (Canon): Before I Fall

Before I Fall

Written by Lauren Oliver in 2010

The Raccoon: Before I Fall starts with the death of the narrator, Sam Kingston, and then explores how she deals with bullying, suicide, sex, and love as she is forced to relive her last day seven times.

UNMASKED: This book hits hard from the very first page.  As I read through a prologue that presented a completely different, yet raw and disturbingly possible view of how we think in our final moments, I knew that I was holding something much more intelligent and powerful than most YA novels about high school.  And Oliver kept up this brilliance through to the last page, when Sam finally gets it, wrapping up the story in a perfect, razor-sharp bow.  The reader is given a present, but with opening it comes a scar.  It’s impossible to look at the world the same way after this book.

The best part of Before I Fall comes from that intelligence: Oliver, through Sam’s voice, unabashedly tells the truth about everything that teenagers have to go through.  For example, Sam goes on one or two witty tangents in each chapter to give the reader a stronger picture of a character or situation.  In the first of these, “Popularity: An Analysis,” Sam admits, “So now I have first pick of everything.  So what.  That’s the way it is.  Nobody ever said life was fair.”

I’ve always been a champion for unbreaking narratives.  When books have multiple narrators, I end up picking favorites and skimming through most of the chapters.  When books go off-topic, I’ll keep flipping the pages until the story resumes.  Yet, this wasn’t necessary this time.  Before I Fall’s tangents match a favorite phrase of my former English teacher: “your writing should be the length of a lady's skirt: long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting.”

This unseasoned honesty is only one of the reasons it was difficult to put this book down.  While there were a few clear climaxes, helping the reader to feel the intensity of Sam’s emotions, every scene in the story was relevant and had something unique to say.  This book is everything I could have asked for and exactly what I needed to kickstart a new year.

Strong Points:

• No minor characters.  Everyone mentioned is important, and yet none of them hogs the spotlight for more than a few pages.
• Clichés and stereotypes are used rarely and only to help show characters’ mindsets.  The reader is not pressured into liking or rooting against any character, and any moments that seemed like predictable conclusions ended up being stepping stones to something new.
• Parents are neither left out of the picture nor used as a device to teach lessons or show character development for solitary teenagers.

Weak Points:

• The book requires a working knowledge of American high schools.  Certain school events and social conventions have quick explanations because the reader is expected to already know of and relate to them.
• Not a weak point, but I’m giving this book a trigger warning on suicide, sexual harassment, and bullying.  Before I Fall is not for the thin-skinned.

Rating: 19/20 Cupid Day roses

Ideal Setting: Read this during school, so that you can look up every few minutes with some new epiphany and see your fellow students and teachers in a completely different light.