In the fictional novel Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, Samantha Kingston, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School, has recently died in a tragic car accident. But instead of actually dying, Samantha, or Sam as her friends call her, is surprised to find herself reliving the same day of the car crash, February 12, over and over again. After experiencing February 12 for the first time, Sam realizes that one of her peers that she and her best friends have bullied since elementary school, Juliet Sykes, commits suicide on the same day. While reliving the same day multiple times, Sam finds that she deeply regrets her previous hurtful actions and is determined to stop Juliet on her mission to kill herself. As she undergoes this emotional task, Sam learns valuable lessons about herself and the people that she associates with. By reliving February 12, Sam discovers that she is no longer attracted to her current boyfriend, that she loves her family more than she ever thought she did, that nobody should take anything for granted, and acquires heavily guarded secrets about some of her closest friends.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. The book is written with such detail that sometimes the reader feels like he/she is facing the same situations that Sam does. I loved how the author chose to write Before I Fall in Sam’s perspective, or in first person point of view. In making this decision, the author allows the reader to know exactly what is running through Sam’s mind at any and every point in the book. In the novel Before I Fall, Sam literally dies and then relives the same day over and over again. Not knowing what Sam was feeling, thinking, and experiencing during these events would have entirely changed the reader’s perspective of the book Before I Fall. Reading Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver was exceedingly enjoyable and I would recommend this book to anyone over the age of twelve because of some sexual content.