Stay With Me

Slow read

I am not even halfway through this book right now and I am already bored with it. My advice, if you are going to read this book, read it when you are bored and have nothing else to read. The characters are interesting, but the plot is so dull. The idea of trying to find out why someone committed suicide is so overused :(

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

An Excellent Read

The book Stay With Me is a wonderful story about love and loss and how one can lead straight to the other. Leila Abranel feels that she has been left behind when her much older sister, Rebecca, decides to take her own life. Rebecca was 20 years older than Leila and they had just truly begun to get to know one another. Leila was beginning to feel like she could talk to Rebecca about things that she couldn't talk to her parents about and then she overdosed on pills and ended any chance of a relationship Leila thought they might be able to have.
In the midst of the mourning and grief, Leila's parents decide that it might be best if they went ahead as planned and moved to Poland for a year, only with a slight change. Since Leila is only 16 she was going to be staying with Rebecca while they were gone but now they must ask her other sister, Clare, if she could take care of her while they are gone.
Leila never really felt like she fit in with her other sisters but she felt like she fit more with Rebecca because Clare was more the smart, workaholic type. Leila is dyslexic and so has always had trouble fitting in and feeling like she belongs but once she moves in with Clare, they start to learn new things about the other and form a close, sisterly bond.
Raphael also helps take care of Leila while her parents are in Poland. His mother was married to their uncle before she met his father and so he is their semi-cousin. Raphael and Clare once had a relationship but it didn't work for reasons that weren't really mentioned. Shortly after Leila moves in with Clare, Clare breaks up with her boyfriend and then once again starts a relationship with Raphael, forming a type of family for Leila to rely on.
While, Leila has tried to move on from her sister's death, she still feels like she is missing something and decides that she should try and find the reason Rebecca killed herself. In her quest for answers she gets a job at Cafe Acca, the last place she saw Rebecca. In a way Rebecca led Leila right to Eamon. Eamon is a 31 year old writer for TV shows and he immediately takes an interest in Leila, not knowing that she is only 16. Throughout the book Leila and Eamon go through many different phases and finally settle on dating even if other people think it is wrong of them.
In the end, Leila realizes that maybe Rebecca didn't really have a reason for killing herself, maybe she just gave up. She knows that what Rebecca did was selfish and inexcusable. Rebecca was only thinking of herself, not the people she would be leaving behind. Leila finally learns that she doesn't really need to know everything about her sister but that in her own way Rebecca led Leila right to her love, if not her great love then her great love for now.
Stay With Me is a story about coping with the sudden death of someone you love and how maybe you don't get over that, maybe you just find new ways to shape your life around it.

A good book to read

The book Stay With Me by Garret Freymann Weyr, in my opinion was a good book; it is a book people can relate to. The book talks about coping and understand the sudden death of a loved one. The book is mainly focused for women/female teens. The book deals with losing a loved one and having to find answers to questions you are left with. You can relate to the characters and the fact that you could relate to the characters helps to get you interested in the book. The struggle that the main character Leila went through was a very realistic situation that had you relate with the character. Leila if left with many questions after the sudden suicide of one of her sisters and the passage of discovering the truth behind the mystery is an interesting one and once you start reading you don¿t want to put the book down. I like this book because it is a book that helps you reflect and it puts you in another person¿s situation that will in the long run help you understand people better. People who are into real life situations and for young adults and maybe even adults would like the book and I recommend that people read this book because it will open your eyes to a different situation and it will help you reflect on your own life.

Reviewed by Jocelyn Pearce for TeensReadToo.com

When Leila's much older sister, Rebecca, kills herself, it changes the lives of everyone who knew her, and many people who didn't. But did anyone really know Rebecca, or just the face she showed them? This is just one of the questions that Leila can't help but ask herself in the months after her sister's death. Did she know Rebecca? Or did she only know Rebecca through her interactions with other people? Leila knows her father. She knew her father's first wife, Janie, who died before Rebecca. But if she had really known Rebecca, if anyone had known Rebecca fully, wouldn't they have been able to figure out Rebecca's reasons for doing what she did?

It's for that reason that Leila is searching when she meets Eamon. At first he's only a customer in the café where she once saw Rebecca with the mysterious T., a man she thinks might know something of the reason Rebecca had for committing suicide. Later, though, he becomes something much more.

Clare is Leila's surviving older half-sister. Clare has her own life: a boyfriend, a career, and an apartment--suddenly one occupant short. Rebecca lived there, and now that Leila's parents are moving to Poland for the year, she will move in with Clare. During this year, Clare and Raphael, their unrelated "cousin," will become much, much more important in Leila's life. She will get to know them, maybe in the way she never got to know Rebecca--the way she is still trying to get to know Rebecca, even after her death.

STAY WITH ME is a very powerful, moving story about love, loss, and life. It's about the way life keeps going on, even after a tragedy. Since it takes place in New York and since Rebecca dies right after the attacks on the city on 9/11, the characters are healing from their own personal tragedy, but also, along with everyone else in the city, from the attack on them all. That's not the focus of the novel, but it's definitely a part of it.

Garrett Freymann-Weyr is brilliant at creating wonderful, three-dimensional characters. I've read two of her previous novels (MY HEARTBEAT and WHEN I WAS OLDER), and that's something that can be seen in all of her work. It's a talent, and I was glad to see it shows just as much in STAY WITH ME as in the other two novels. We learn plenty, even about the characters only glimpsed in the novel. The character I felt I knew the least was Leila's mother, but she was not really a part of this story. She hardly knew Rebecca, whose death is what sets off the whole story (though Leila chooses to start the telling of it with her visits to Janie, her father's first wife). There are so many parts to this story, but Rebecca, her life and death, is what ties it all together so marvelously.

well..

This book was good. Eamon draws you in, but then when you find out more it's kind of creepy. And it's creepy how okay her parents are okay with it. Also I feel like the story would have been better if it were placed in either europe or an earlier time period. The way everyone speaks just does not fit with this time period.

good but...

I really like this book. I related with almost every aspect of it until i got whole relationship with the 31 year old. It blew the realism[sp?] of the characters. Otherwise, I enjoyed it a lot.

It's about the real life experiences.

I really enjoyed the book 'Stay With Me' because it is about real life experiences. I felt the emotions of the characters when I was reading it. I felt like I could relate to the main characters through their struggles and overcomings. I would recommend this book to everyone. It was very enjoyable.

A recommended pick for mature teens

A girl's dyslexia, relationships with a father and stepmother, and determination to investigate romance, cheating and death makes for a vivid multi-faceted story in Stay With Me, which follows her evolving sense of self in the face of disability and changes. Stay With Me is a recommended pick for mature teens who will find plenty of interest in a story of love which keeps on changing.

A YA novel that treats its readers like grown ups.

I read this over the week end and was glad to have spent time with these characters. I liked how grief and joy were depicted and captured in questions rather than answers. This is a YA novel that treats its readers like grown ups. How nice. And there was no message at all -- good or bad. Just a story about love, suicide and sisters.

an excellent book

it will change the way you look at things for life. Lelia's character will keep you more and more drawn to the book, page after page.

Disappointed

I have enjoyed Freymann-Weyr's books in the past and as a children's bookseller recommended them many times, but was so disappointed in the latest. Liked the topic and approach until Eamon entered the picture-17 year old in 'love' with a 31 year old? Something is wrong with this picture-the same message could have been developed without the age difference or even this part of the story line. When do parents of a girl this age decide to leave a decision of dating an adult up to her-wrong message & I am so very disappointed.

Excellence in the Form of a Novel

This story was perfectly crafted, a mixture of poetic thinking, love and loss, and powerful takes on reality. It is a perfect book for a mature young adult, and poses unanswerable questions that leave room for unhindered thinking.

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No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.