The Supernatural (Where She Went, Gayle Forman)

Where She Went, by Gayle Forman, is the sequel to the heartbreaking If I Stay. If I Stay is the story of music-crazed Mia who gets into a car accident with her family. She is in a coma for most of the book, trying to decide whether to try to fight death or to let it take her. Where She Went is the continuation of Mia's story, told from the perspective of her now ex-boyfriend. A concept that started in If I Stay was the idea of being able to have an out-of-body experience, like Mia does when in her coma. This was probably just intended for the readers not to get bored with just Mia's thoughts, and this way they can watch the other characters lives and still be reading from Mia's perspective. Ultimately, it led to the event that gave Mia the will to wake up and survive: when Adam, her boyfriend begged her to. This concept continues slightly into the next book, which made me wonder if this was possibly the inspiration for the books themselves.

When having her out-of-body experience, Mia was able to see and hear the things around her, which she should not have been able to do when being in her coma. This idea never really gets confronted or explained within that first book, besides Mia wondering if she is dreaming. The only way that is does get elaborated on within the second book is when she tells Adam about it. Struggling with her losses and angry at him for her pain, she yells at him for asking her to stay alive. This immediately tells him that she somehow miraculously heard him when she was in her coma. She then tells him about how she had once been able to see all of the way outside the hospital where she lay, and that she had watched him struggle with her car accident. Though this whole thing is incredible, they do not contemplate it for too long. The one way in which it affects them is to make Mia open her mind a little bit more to the idea of ghosts.

After losing her family, Mia is thoroughly devastated and traumatized. The one thing that keeps her going is the conversations that she believes to be having with her mom, dad and brother in her mind. When admitting to this, she also says that she knows it sounds crazy and that she is not sure if it it real. I can't help thinking that the author put this in intentionally to make the readers wonder about ghosts and the afterlife. It is not a big plot within the books, in fact is only quickly mentioned,but all the same I think the author thought it was a weighty idea. Maybe she had some sort of personal relation to these ideas and thoughts, or maybe she thought they were just interesting. I truly don't know. I think the idea of ghosts is very controversial and interesting. In the book it definitely comes to me as a comfort to think that her family is still there somehow, because of how attached to them I got as a reader. It is definitely something else entirely to think about in real life, but is surely worth putting some thought into.