Joining the likes of popular young adult fan favorite The Fault in Our Stars is If I Stay, the recent movie adaptation of Gayle Forman’s novel about teen love and tear-jerking events.

However, the movies aren’t anything more than slightly similar. While The Fault in Our Stars remains centrally a love story, with cancer and adolescence as a background; If I Stay focuses on the choice Mia, its young narrator, must make: life or death. The love story proves to be a secondary plot, as it should be. The book centers around Mia and her crucial decision. Past the surface, the two books remain completely different in tones, storylines, and themes.

Luckily for readers, the movie stays true to the book, probably because the author was omnipresent in the filmmaking process. Unfortunately, the flashback style does not flow as well on screen as it did in the book. What made the book tick was the narration, and you can not achieve the same level of narration in a movie.

Changing the flashback style of the book into a different format probably would have improved the movie. If the film kept the viewers in the dark about the car crash and Mia’s dilemma until around the hour mark, the movie could benefit from the element of surprise.

We would meet Mia, feel the love of her family, know her growing desire and need for Adam, and wait with her as she waits for the news from Juilliard. Experiencing the shock of her pain and loss would gain viewer’s attention and sympathy. In reality, once Mia decides what she will do, the audience long since stopped caring, an intricate quality.

Although that change would better the film, it still exhibits impactful qualities. More importantly, it stays true to the book, and the acting remains spectacular. It certainly proves a movie worth seeing, and no dry eye in the audience remains at the credit’s roll.

The Chant’s grade: B+