Stay Review

Title: Stay
Author: Deb Caletti
Release Date: March 2011
Publisher: Simon Pulse

Pages: 311

Sample Passage:

“First off, I've never told this story to anyone. Not the entire thing anyway, and not entirely truthfully. I'm only telling it now for one reason, and that's because an untold story has a weight that can submerge you, sure as a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean. I learned that. This kind of story, those kind of things kept secret- they have the power to keep you hidden forever, and most of all from yourself. The ghosts from that drowned ship, they keep haunting."  (p.1)

“I thought it was a complement. I was sitting there, soaking in the great ego feed of new love, where your wonderfulness merges with his wonderfulness, magic dust that creates some sky-high shiny Christmas tree sparkling with admiration and flattery and tinsel and lights and a billion, hopeful, unopened presents underneath. I just saw it as praise, falling down now like glittering snowflakes. But it was something else. A drop of poison on that gathering snow. That moment in the fairy tale when we know what just happened but the princess doesn’t.” (p.49)

Mini Review:

Pros: Beautiful prose, Deb Caletti, powerful

Cons: none that really stood out

Overall: Favorite book of the last two years.

Grade: A++

Summary from Amazon:
Clara’s relationship with Christian is intense from the start, and like nothing she’s ever experienced before. But what starts as devotion quickly becomes obsession, and it’s almost too late before Clara realizes how far gone Christian is--and what he’s willing to do to make her stay.

Now Clara has left the city—and Christian—behind. No one back home has any idea where she is, but she still struggles to shake off her fear. She knows Christian won’t let her go that easily, and that no matter how far she runs, it may not be far enough....

Written Review:
Absolutely breathtaking. Caletti has always had a way with words that draw you into a story completely but Stay was so powerful, and so honest, and so beautiful, it took her talent to a whole new level of brilliance.

My favorite thing about all of Caletti’s works but Stay in particular was the way one aspect of the story, one emotion or event that not all can really relate to because most haven’t had the same experience, is expanded and explained in a way that every single person can feel for. There were so many parts of this novel that I had to stop and go find somebody to read it to because of the wisdom of a passage or the emotion portrayed was so close to myself.

With such raw emotions portrayed so vividly, the characters developed just as brightly. Clara has become one of the most realistic characters I’ve read and her story is so powerful and depicted so well that it’s sure to hit home with many. This is more than realistic fiction. It’s just plain real.

This novel is not one that comes close to a light read. It’s deep and full of thought and heart and love and forgiveness and moving on. It’s a story that will resonate with many and will not leave your head for a while after you’ve finished.

Breathtaking, heartbreaking, raw, real, beautiful, Stay is contemporary fiction at its very best.