Synopsis: High school senior Samantha Kingston has
the perfect life. She’s incredibly popular, has a ton of friends, and a
popular, handsome boyfriend. Her life seems too bood to be true – until
February 12th, when Sam and her three best friends get into a fatal
car accident. Only for Sam, it’s not quite fatal. She wakes up the next
morning, reliving the last day of her life seven times, trying to find a way to
put things right.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Discussion Points: The thing that struck me the most while
reading this novel is the way Oliver characterizes her protagonist. It’s kind
of a Lit 101 thought, but the protagonist doesn’t have to be likeable and, in
fact, some of the most interesting novels I’ve read follow a distinctly
unlikeable protagonist. Sam isn’t exactly unlikeable, but she definitely isn’t
a “good” person, which I thought was a really interesting approach for Oliver
to take, especially since she uses Sam as a first person narrator. It’s a lot
easier for a reader to deal with an unlikeable protagonist in the third person,
especially since the third person narrator often helps shape your opinion of
the protagonist. Take Eddie in The Dark
Tower, for example. I’m not crazy about him as a character (which makes me
glad that he’s not the only protagonist through which King focalizes), but he’s
a lot easier to deal with since I’m not directly in his head. When you’re
completely within a character through first person narration, the reader has to
work a lot harder to view their actions objectively and form your own opinion.
Which brings me to Sam’s character.
At the start of the novel, she’s not a very likeable person. After all, she’s a
“mean girl” – a rule-breaking, smoking, drinking, bullying bitch. Granted,
Lindsay, Sam’s best friend, is worse, but Sam isn’t blameless. As much as she
wants to see herself as a good person, she still has plenty of faults. However,
I think that in giving us a protagonist that isn’t even close to perfect,
Oliver created someone a whole lot more relatable to teenage readers. If the
lesson that Oliver wants to drive home is that change and redemption are
possible, no matter what mistakes you’ve made, then starting with a perfect
protagonist wouldn’t work. Oliver needs to make Sam a little dirtier – a little
more like “us” – to make her eventual redemption all that more powerful.
Across the novel, Sam grows and
changes so much, and opens herself up to seeing the bigger picture. For so
long, she’s fixated on trying to save herself, that she looses sight of what’s
most important – it’s not always about her. Sam thinks that if she can put
everything “just right” by making all the right choices and keeping everyone
safe, that she’ll be granted a reprieve and get to continue on with her life.
In the end, though, Sam realizes that it was never about saving herself. This
whole journey was about leaving behind a better world for her friends. Reliving
that last day of her life, Sam begins to appreciate the things she never
noticed before, and realizes that those people she thought were “beneath” her
were really the heroes all along. Samantha Kingston proves that you can always
make amends, even if it means giving up your own selfish desires. Of course,
Oliver’s point isn’t that you should jump in front of a moving car to save the unpopular
kids, but that you should be willing enough to step outside of yourself and
consider others instead of putting yourself first.
Mischief Managed,
Slim Pearl
Silver-Feather
Currently Reading: Bloodlines by Richelle Mead
Books Read in 2012: 21
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