Stepheny's Reviews > Before I Fall

This book caused a lot of strong emotions to happen all at once inside me. Most of them were angry feelings. I did not like this book at all. Not one bit. Which was such a disappointment because I loved her other book, Rooms. The idea behind this one is a good one, but I don’t like the messages being sent in this book at all.

Little Miss Perfect goes to school dressed like a tramp for Valentine’s Day. It’s the Friday before VD and she has the most studly boyfriend ever. Her and her stuck up BFF’s roll into the school parking lot a little late, cut a classmate off causing said classmate to be late for class, and go strolling into school like they own the place. Because in most senses, they do. They’re the “it girls” of Thomas Jefferson High.

They get all their flowers an valentines. Flirt with the creepy teacher. Sneak out during class and smoke cigarettes. Then they go to the “big party” that night where of course, they’re gonna dress like dirty street-whores, drink their faces off, smoke some pot and then bang their boyfriends.

Instead they help to humiliate a girl in front of everyone at the party. They leave amid the laughter and encouragement of their peers. Because being a rude, selfish twat is all the rage these days. FUCK I hate high school.

When they leave, they get into a car accident where they’re killed. Or are they?

Little Miss Perfect keeps reliving the day. Over and over and over again. No one else seems aware of what is happening to her. She can do things exactly the same or drastically different and none of it seems to matter…except it does. The outcome of that fateful night is different. Can she figure out the secret code? Can she figure out what to do in order to save them all?

DUNDUNDUN.

Oh my god. I hate this book. She never learns anything. There’s no growth. There’s not an ounce of regret for her behavior. There’s an attitude of “well, we’re all assholes in high school so it’s ok”. Well, guess what? Not all of us are. Some of us are the victims of the ones who were. Some of us are the ones plagued with self-doubt and low self-esteem from deeply rooted memories of being humilated and tortured on a regular basis by our classmates. And not all of us have what it takes to rise above it. Some of us don’t make it out alive.

This book bothered me on so many levels. I could go on about this for a while, but I won’t. I’ll just say that anything that justifies shitty human behavior is complete garbage. It is not difficult to be kind. It is not difficult to live and let live. It kills me that people can so actively go out of their way to make other people’s lives miserable.

I am not saying that I never had a go at anyone else, or that I didn’t laugh at someone else’s misfortune. But these girls go out of their way to make sure that certain people suffer and that is a big fucking problem with me. And nothing these girls could have done would have excused or made up for it with me. Hence the 1 star rating.