Story Secrets: IF I STAY by Gayle Forman

I'm very excited to welcome author Gayle Forman to Story Secrets today to talk about IF I STAY, in anticipation of the sequel, WHERE SHE WENT. (In fact, Gayle just finished up the sequel's Teaser Tour.)

I had the pleasure of meeting Gayle in person at the wonderful Teen Author Carnival this last May, still to be recorded as one of the coolest events I've been to yet! Gayle was generous and lovely and charming.

Welcome to Story Secrets, Gayle!

*****

On a day that started like any other… Mia had everything: a loving family, a gorgeous, adoring boyfriend, and a bright future full of music and full of choices. Then, in an instant, almost all of that is taken from her. Caught between life and death, between a happy past and an unknowable future, Mia spends one critical day contemplating the one decision she has left—the most important decision she’ll ever make.

Or, I suppose another way to put it is: it's the happiest, most uplifting book you'll ever read that contemplates death.

Or, try this: A story about memory, music, living, dying, loving.


Holly Cupala: I love to hear the stories behind the story – from where did the idea for IF I STAY come?

Gayle Forman: Well, part of this story is a secret and remains so. But I'll be vague and say there was a tragedy that left me with a question: If something catastrophic happened to your family and you yourself were hovering between life and death and knew what had happened to the rest of your family, could you choose to go with them? Would you choose to go with them? So, I'm obsessing about this for years and years when this totally fictional 17 year-old cello player pops into my mind to answer the question...

Learn more about Gayle and her story secrets here...

~Holly Cupala