Before I Fall (2010) (edit title/settings)

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Characters edit see section history

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• Samantha Emily Kingston: Samantha is a teen that is living every girls' dream. She has friends that are always there for her, a perfect boyfriend, and the whole school wrapped around her little fingers. Main character of the story.
• Lindsay Edgecombe: Lindsay is one of Sam's best friends. Sam realizes that Lindsay is afraid to be a less popular girl because she was once outside the circle and she will not go back to being less popular. Picks Sam up in her car each morning.
• Elody: One of Sam's best friends. She likes to drink and currently hooks-up with a guy named Steve. Steve is also known as Muffin.
• Allison Harris (Ally): Another one of Sam's best friends. She likes to cook even though she doesn't eat a whole lot. She is into a boy named Matt.
• Vicky Hallinan: one of the girls who attends Sam's high school
• Izzy Kingston: Sam's little 8-year-old sister. She has a lisp. Adorable and not afraid of what people think of her, always wears yellow and pink, and loves peanut butter.
• Patrick Manasse: Lindsey's current boyfriend. They always go off and on though.
• Rob Cokran: Sam's current boyfriend. The most popular guy that goes to Jefferson High School. Plays lacrosse.
• Juliet Sykes: Juliet is Marian's older sister. She used to be best friends with Lindsey. Sam, Lindsey, Elody, and Alli all give her a rose on Cupid Day every year saying "Maybe next year, most likely no." She is very quiet and keeps to herself. She tries to kill herself several times.
• Kent McFuller: Sam's first kiss. They were friends for a while but then Sam stopped talking to him. He likes to draw comics, is the editor of a school publication, is a good guy, and he is also in Sam's calculus class. He dresses a little differently and isn't very popular.
• Evan Daimler: Sam's 25-year-old math teacher. Sam and her friends think he's cute. He also dresses like he's still in high school and wears a hemp necklace.
• Anna Cartullo: Lindsey considers her trash. Alex cheats with her on Bridget. She eats in the scary bathroom all by herself.
• Alex Liment: Teenage boy who has a girlfriend (Bridget) and a mistress (Anna). He is also known for selling weed to other teenagers.
• Bridget McGuire: Alex's current girlfriend. She is very Catholic and believes she can fix Alex so that he is a better kid.
• Ms. Winters: A teacher who walks around the school yard looking for teens that are smoking. Not a very nice women when it comes down to punishment.
• Mrs. Sykes: Marion and Juliet Sykes' mother.
• Mr. Otto: Gym teacher at Jefferson High School. Sam believes he is very creepy and likes high school girls.
• Sarah Grundel: One of the girls on the swim team. She battles tardies for her right to stay on the team. She and Lindsay aren't so tight.
• Mr. Tierney: The chemistry teacher who gives Sam a test that she doesn't remember the answers to.
• Mrs. Harbor: Mrs. Harbor is Sam's current English teacher.
• Marian Sykes: Marian is Juliet's little sister. More outgoing than Juliet. Sam talks to her at dinner and helps figure what is wrong with Juliet. Marian is also the angel that brought Sam her rose on Cupid Day.
• Irma: Woman who works at a store in the mall.
• Mrs. Kingston: Samatha's mother - She's not been in her daughter's room since a fight they had when Sam was in middle school and drew a line with red nail polish at the entrance of her door.
• Lauren Lornet: Sam cheats on her for the chemistry test several times.
• Steve Dough: Elody's current hook-up; she calls him muffin. Not the nicest guy; he is more of the jerk type.
• Chris Harmon: Add a description of this character.
• Mari Tinsley
• Emma McElroy
• Gabby Haynes
• Beth Schiff
• Eileen Cho
• Mrs. Harris
• Chrissy Walker
• Oren Talmadge
• Mindy Sachs
• Tara Flute
• Adam Marshall
• Andrew Roberts
• Rachel Kornish
• Becky DiFiore
• Amy Weiss
• Phoebe Rifer
• Becca Roth
• Courtney Walker
• Bethany Harps
• Mike Heffner
• Matt Dorfman
• Matt Wilde
• Joanne Polerno

Quotes edit see section history

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• “Sometimes I’m afraid to go to sleep because of what I’m leaving behind.”

  Kent

• “What does the S stand for? Um- Severus Like in Harry Potter?”

  Irma and Sam

• “Is it really so much worse than what you do? Think about it.”

• “A good friend keeps your secrets for you. A best friend helps you keep your own secrets.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “I guess that's what saying goodbye is always like--like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you're in the air, there's nothing you can do but let go.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “I shiver, thinking about how easy it is to be totally wrong about people -- to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “Maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around it, let it slide like coins through you fingers. So much time you can waste it. But for some of us there's only today. And the truth is, you never really know.”

  Back Cover

• “This is pretty much the answer to every problem you encounter in suburbia: plant a tree, and hope you don't see anyone's privates.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “Here's one of the things I learned this morning: if you cross a line and nothing happens, the line loses meaning. It's like that old riddle about a tree falling in a forest, and whether it makes a sound if there's no one around to hear it.You keep drawing a line farther and farther away, crossing it every time. That's how people end up stepping off the edge of the earth. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to bust out of orbit, to spin out to a place where no one can touch you. To lose yourself-to get lost.”

• “Here's another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you're dead, it's the only thing that keeps you alive.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “I close my eyes and remember how he used to slip his hand in mine and whisper, Don't listen to them. Just keep walking. Keep your head up.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “But for some of us, there's only today. And the truth is, you never really know.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “She looks like some kind of tropical flower. A part of me is tempted to freak out at my mom for letting Izzy wear whatever she wants. The other kids must make fun of her. Then again, I guess Izzy doesn't care. That's another thing that strikes me as funny: that my eight-year-old sister is braver than I am. She's probably braver than most of the people at Thomas Jefferson. I wonder if that will ever change. If it will get beaten out of her.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “At the same time the more I think about it-- the rain beating furiously-- the angrier I get. This is my life: the whole big, sprawling mess of my life in all its possibilities-- first kisses and last kisses and college and apartments and marriage and fights and apologies and happiness-- brought to a point, a second, an edge of a second, razored off in that final moment...”

  Samantha Kingston

• “And I think of all the times I sat in squirming silence, terrified I would say or do the wrong thing, terrified the dorky, lanky, horseback-riding loser inside me would rise up and swallow the new me, like a snake feasting on something. How I cleared the shelves of my trophies and dumped my beanbag chair and learned how to dress and never ate the hot lunch, and, above all, learned to stay away from the people who would drag me down, and carry me back to that place.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “So many things become beautiful when you really look.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “It's funny, isn't it? When you are young you just want to be old, and then later you wish you could go back to being a kid.”

• “It's amazing that eyes can do that, that they can transform light into heat.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “‘You can’t go home again’ - isn’t necessarily that places change, but that people do. So nothing ever looks the same.”

  Samantha Kingston

• “It's the dip in your stomach right before everything goes flying apart in a blast of wind, and screaming, right before you let go completely.”

  Samantha Kingston

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• A good friend keeps your secrets for you. A best friend helps you keep your own secrets.

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• Here’s another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you’re dead, it’s the only thing that keeps you alive.

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• I guess that’s what saying good-bye is always like—like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you’re in the air, there’s nothing you can do but let go.

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• But for some of us there’s only today. And the truth is, you never really know.

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• I suppose that’s the secret, if you’re ever wishing for things to go back to the way they were. You just have to look up.

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• That’s the thing about best friends. That’s what they do. They keep you from spinning off the edge.

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• You keep drawing a line farther and farther away, crossing it every time. That’s how people end up stepping off the edge of the earth. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to bust out of orbit, to spin out to a place where no one can touch you. To lose yourself—to get lost. Or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe some of you already know. To those people I can only say: I’m sorry.

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• It amazes me how easy it is for things to change, how easy it is to start off down the same road you always take and wind up somewhere new. Just one false step, one pause, one detour, and you end up with new friends or a bad reputation or a boyfriend or a breakup. It’s never occurred to me before; I’ve never been able to see it. And it makes me feel, weirdly, like maybe all of these different possibilities exist at the same time, like each moment we live has a thousand other moments layered underneath it that look different.

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• Like there’s no continuity in people at all. Like something ruptures when you hit twelve, or thirteen, or whatever the age is when you’re no longer a kid but a “young adult,” and after that you’re a totally different person. Maybe even a less happy person. Maybe even a worse one.

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• The details that are my life’s special pattern, like how in handwoven rugs what really makes them unique are the tiny flaws in the stitching, little gaps and jumps and stutters that can never be reproduced.   So many things become beautiful when you really look.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

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• Thomas Jefferson High School: It's the school Sam and and most of the other characters attend
• The Country's Best Yogurt (TCBY): Yogurt shop at downton Ridgeview
• Hunan Kitchen: Chinese restaurant that serves bad food
• Kent's House: A beautiful house in the woods where the teenagers have a party.
• La Villa: The mall at Ridgeview where they go shopping for dresses and stuff for the party

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

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Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Lauren Oliver (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• South Carolina Young Adult Book Award (Finalist, 2011-2012)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PZ7.O475If 2010
• Dewey: Fic

Notes for Parents edit see section history

This book does talk a lot about drinking and sex. They are some of the main themes. Recommended for 14+.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Teens › Social Issues › Being a Teen
• Books › Teens › Social Issues › Suicide
• Books › Teens › Literature & Fiction
• Books › Teens › Health, Mind & Body › Mental Health
• Books › Health, Mind & Body › Death & Grief
• Books › Health, Mind & Body › Relationships › Friendship

More Books Like This edit see section history