Mia is a 17 year old cellist. She's in high school, but not typical - she is a serious musician with one good friend, cool parents, a sweet younger brother - and to her surprise that year - a really great boyfriend. The morning is too idyllic as the happy family trolls off on a days excursion. There is a terrible accident that puts Mia in a coma. The story teeters between anecdotes of her life that fills in the personalities and stories of the characters and the present of the accident and aftermath which she watches in an out of body experience that seems to present her with the choice of staying on this earth or not.
What I liked: The characters were great - fun personalities that I would love as friends. Mia was believable and relatable to me. Her feeling like an outsider in her family was a simple internal conflict that was believable. Her inability to believe/understand why her boyfriend chose her, why her friends couldn't be friends, inhibitions with meshing classical life with punk, or inability to "rock talk" - totally relatable.
The hour and minutes tracking the wake of the accident was nicely broken up with details of her life. Each story added more depth as the minutes/hours ticked away.
What I didn't like: Books I keep reading that imply there is nothingness after death.
And really, like Mia asks herself - why does she get this choice? Why didn't her others get this choice? (Like cancer patients or others in the accident that were killed instantly?)
Quotes: "I'm feeling not just the physical pain, but all that I have lost, and it is profound and catastrophic and will leave a crater in me that nothing will ever fill. But I'm also feeling all that I have in my life, which includes what I have lost, as well as the great unknown of what life might still bring me."
Rating: 4 of 5
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