Want to learn the ideas in If I Stay better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of If I Stay by Gayle Forman here.
Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.
Video Summaries of If I Stay
We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on If I Stay, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Gayle Forman.
1-Page Summary of If I Stay
Overview
If I Stay begins with seventeen-year-old cellist Mia Hall waking up to a thin layer of snow on her lawn. In Oregon, this small amount of snow is enough to cause school closures. Her brother Teddy and father also have the day off, so they pile into their rusty Buick and drive around town visiting friends and family.
Mia’s mother and father were killed in a car accident. She was in the backseat, so her body survived; however, she slipped into a coma. Her consciousness left her body and watched as doctors tried to revive her parents.
Mia and Teddy are rushed to the hospital, where Mia sees her friend Willow. They’re airlifted by helicopter to another hospital in Portland. While she’s in intensive care, Mia watches her grandparents worry about her and remembers times with Adam. She recently applied for a music program in New York City, which caused tension between them.
Mia overhears her grandparents talking about whether Mia should live or die. She realizes that it’s up to her. Later, she learns that Teddy has died and thinks about how much pain she would feel if she lost her family. Therefore, she decides not to wake from her coma.
In the book’s final scene, Adam puts headphones over Mia’s ears and plays a recording of Yo-Yo Ma. She listens to his music while she thinks about her future and grieves for what she has lost. The sensations overwhelm her until she returns to her body and squeezes Adam’s hand. She wakes from her coma when he says her name.
7:09 A.M., 8:17 A.M., and 9:23 A.M.
The novel If I Stay opens with a line that foreshadows the inciting incident. The narrator switches from past tense to present tense. Mia wakes up one February morning to find snow on her lawn, which causes school to be canceled. Her brother Teddy is excited about this because he doesn’t have to go to school and so does their father, who’s an English teacher like Mia’s mother.
Mia’s mother tells her that Mia’s boyfriend, Adam, is in the newspaper because he and his band are on tour with a more popular group named Bikini. The article does not mention that Shooting Star sold out a Seattle club the night before.
Mia reveals that she is a cellist who recently auditioned for Juilliard, but worries about the complications it will cause in her relationship with Adam. Mia’s mother cooks pancakes while Mia and her father discuss their plans for the day. They plan to visit Henry and Willow, stop at BookBarn, then go to Mia’s grandparents’ house for dinner.
The family gets into their rusty Buick and drives away. They decide on classical music, but Teddy listens to Spongebob CDs on his portable player. Mia closes her eyes and imagines herself playing Beethoven’s Cello Sonata no. 3 while she listens to the classical music in the car with her family.
The story jumps ahead to after the accident. The Buick has been destroyed by a four-ton pickup truck going sixty miles an hour plowing into the passenger side. Tiny flames of spilled gas burn on the wet road. Mia is surprised that the radio is still playing after such a horrific crash. She’s standing in a ditch at the side of the road and sees her dad first; pieces of his brain lie on the asphalt. Her mother’s lips are blue and her eyes are red, full of blood. She finds her own body next: she is lying on ground, blood from her chest seeps onto snow, and leg bone exposed—it’s broken; she can’t understand what’s happening but then realizes she’s not dreaming because she can hear music coming through clearly although sirens blare in background too.
Mia wonders if she is dead. She watches paramedics, police and firefighters deal with the crash site where her family died. Mia sees her own body being frantically attended to by paramedics, who are trying to revive her. She hears a medic announce that she is in a coma.
