Stay by Deb Caletti

Summary/Cover Image from Publisher's Website:

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....

Review:

I read Deb Caletti's The Nature of Jade a couple of years ago and was completely blown away by it, but every other book of hers I've tried to read after that I have failed to finish. Though, with Stay I rediscovered just why I fell in love with Deb's writing and world building all those years ago. Stay is intense, startling, beautiful, and well written. It has a fabulous setting, easy to relate to and likable main characters, and a premise's execution that is nothing short of brilliant. This book is simply contemporary fiction at its absolute best, and I can't wait to suggest it to others come its April release!

Stay tells the story of Clara, a girl who's on the run from the the boy she thought she loved, the boy she thought was perfect for her... When Clara first meet Christian she fell hard for him. He was handsome, eye-catching, and he made her feel special. Though, soon after their relationship began, he started to show a side of him Clara never expected to see...a side that's possessive to the extreme to the point where it's even a bit abusive, and after a particularly bad episode Clara's heads to the beach with her father to start over. But will she truly be able to run away from the past she most wants to forgot? And when she's faced with her past demons, will she be able to come out on top? Only time will tell in this read of one girl and her path of recovery.

Clara... She's a girl who constantly kept me on a roller coaster of emotions as more was reveled and developed about her past and her current state. At times, I wanted to congratulate her on her current strength to pull away from a guy who was abusive, to say she was fearless and brave and strong, but at other times I wanted to yell at her past self for getting in this huge mess to begin with. Though, that made her character even more more real to me, because as anyone knows, everyone makes mistakes. They see the good in people they shouldn't, and they get in bad situations because of it, but what counts is if they able to break away from everything before its too late, which Clara did and I give her props for that. What I most enjoyed about her story was seeing her develop a future for herself without Christan, because not only did it lead to her getting to know some pretty amazing people (*cough* Finn *cough*) but it brought great development to her character. I also loved her reading about her relationship with her father, because not only where they hilarious together, but it also brought many touching, heartwarming as well as heartbreaking scenes to the table.

As said before, the premise's execution of this story was brilliant, because not only did I love how Deb constantly switched the reader so seamlessly between past and present, but she did so in a way that kept the reader on their toes, wondering if Clara would ever truly be able to get away from Christian, as well as come over her internal struggle of getting over the fact she still kind of loved him.

Last but not least, Deb's writing in this was fabulous! As I'm sure you can tell by my review, Deb did a fantastic job with world building, character development, and plot development. Best of all, I loved how she created such a vivid setting!

In all, Stay is a stunning and intense read of one girl's path to recovery. If this isn't contemporary fiction at its best I don't know what is.

Highly, highly recommended.

Grade: A+

Stay will be released April 19, 2011!

Source: Galley Grab