If I Stay

Music functions paradoxically in Gayle Forman’s If I Stay, dividing the characters along lines of personal taste, personality, and worldview. For example, Mia’s parents, her boyfriend Adam, her best friend Kim, and the vast majority of her family’s close friends have an affinity for rock music. Her father spent his early adulthood as a musician and songwriter in a regional rock band, while her mother spent her young adulthood as a self-described “rock chick.” Their love of rock music helps to characterize them. Rock and Roll is traditionally the music of nonconformity, and both Mia’s parents sought to rebel against societal institutions and values that they found archaic. It is also the music of youthful idealism, and while Mia’s parents eventually get married and become their own quirky version of a traditional nuclear family, there is still a palpable tension between their youthful ideals and the pragmatic requirements of supporting and raising a family. Though they are still passionate and opinionated about what constitutes great rock music—for example, they love Jonathan Richman and The Melvins—their adult life has made them more open and accepting of Mia’s alternative musical pursuits. 

If rock music characterizes Mia’s parents, classical music is at the core of understanding Mia, who is distinguished from her parents and from Adam by her personal preference for classical and traditional music. While her father and boyfriend play the guitar, Mia plays the cello as if it were an extension of her physical being. While her parents and Adam prefer Jonathan Richman and Brooke Vega, Mia idolizes composers like Mozart and cellists like Yo-Yo Ma. Her taste in classical music carries over to her preference for traditional dress. Unlike many of her peers, Mia dresses conservatively and avoids the flamboyant or overtly provocative dress that defined her mother’s punk-rock youth. 

Although Mia’s love of classical music seems to convey a love of traditionalism, it is also a powerful expression of non-conformity, since she is literally the only member of her family and peer group passionate about this genre of music. Adam corroborates of the idea that Mia is non-conformist, telling her on the way home from their Halloween date that she is “one of the punkest girls [he] knows” (101). In Mia’s case, her love of classical and traditional music makes her even more off-beat and original than her rocker parents and boyfriend.

Mia’s love of classical music is not the only thematic paradox illustrated by music in If I Stay. While music divides the characters aesthetically and philosophically, it is ultimately a unifying force. Mia and her family accept their differences and encourage each family member’s creative pursuits. Her parents encourage Mia to attend Julliard and go to great trouble to pay for her lessons with Professor Christie and her cello. Similarly, Mia sings her father’s song lyrics, praises her father’s talent, and honors her mother’s youth by dressing up as a rock starlet for Halloween, combining elements of Kim Gordon’s and Debbie Harry’s styles. 

Strangely, music also creates tension in her relationship with Adam. Adam’s meteoric rise with his band, Shooting Star, coupled with Mia’s likely acceptance into Julliard means that their shared musical aspirations, the same quality that brought them together, threatens to tear them apart. If Mia is accepted to Julliard it will mean a cross-country relocation to New York City, while Adam’s band, which has been signed by a record label in Seattle, is firmly rooted in the Pacific Northwest. This impending geographical separation represents an insurmountable obstacle to their relationship. 

Though Mia’s anxieties about a future without Adam linger throughout the novel, music is the medium that unites them in the end and brings her back to life. Adam not only uses Yo-Yo Ma to remind Mia of their first date and to force her into a contemplation of their past, present, and future; in playing this music, he reminds her of all the love that still remain in her life—her love of music and her love of Adam and her remaining friends and family. Like her memory of the family Labor Day barbecue concert at which Mia accompanied her father and boyfriend’s guitars with her cello, music is a unifying symbol that ultimately links disparate people, personalities, and philosophies in joyful harmony.