40 Fun Facts About If I Stay

How does the friendship between Mia Hall and Kim Schein begin in middle school in If I Stay?

A fistfight in the schoolyard ended with both girls laughing at their bruises. They had resented being lumped together as the quiet, dark-haired, arty ones.

In If I Stay, cellist Mia Hall is waiting to hear from which performing arts school after a five-piece audition?

Juilliard would put Mia a whole country away from her boyfriend, whose band is taking off at home. That looming separation strains the couple in the months before the crash.

Which famous cellist's concert do Mia Hall and Adam Wilde attend on their first date in If I Stay?

Yo-Yo Ma is the name Adam first drops at school to strike up a conversation with Mia. Months later he turns up with spare tickets, and the two share a first kiss after the concert.

Which composer does Adam Wilde dress up as for Halloween, spending $100 on the costume, in If I Stay?

Mozart was Adam's nod to Mia's classical world. She answered by going to his Halloween gig in an outfit built partly from clothes her mother wore at her age.

Which music genre do the fair-haired parents of classical cellist Mia Hall love in If I Stay?

Punk rock ran through the whole household, which left dark-haired Mia wondering whether she had been switched at birth. Her parents still made sure she could study the cello privately.

Which actress plays cellist Mia Hall in the 2014 film adaptation of Gayle Forman's novel If I Stay?

Chloë Grace Moretz secured the part in January 2013. Dakota Fanning had been in talks in 2010 but turned the role down to finish her last year of high school.

Which visitor weeps at comatose Mia Hall's bedside in If I Stay and says it is all right if she goes?

Her grandfather, a man of few words, says he wants her to stay but will understand if she cannot. He is the first person to acknowledge how hard staying would be.

Gayle Forman's If I Stay is set in which US state, where Mia Hall's rescue helicopter flies past Mount Hood?

Oregon is home to Mia's small town. The helicopter is carrying her to a bigger hospital in the state's largest city, where her boyfriend's band is due to play that night.

Adam Wilde's band is called Willamette Stone in the film of If I Stay, but what is it called in the novel?

Shooting Star is on the rise around the Northwest, opening for a bigger indie act the night before the crash. That success is what would keep Adam on the west coast.

What closes school on the morning of the crash in If I Stay, giving the Hall family a day off together?

A snowfall is unusual enough in Mia's part of the Northwest to shut the schools. Her mother skips work too, and the family sets out to visit friends.

Roughly how much time does the present-day story of If I Stay cover, from breakfast to Mia Hall's decision?

One day is all it takes: the crash comes in the morning and Mia decides early the next. Flashbacks fill in years of family life, friendship and first love along the way.

At the end of If I Stay, how does Mia Hall signal to her boyfriend that she has chosen to live?

Mia squeezes his hand after he plays her cello music through headphones, and the novel ends as he gasps her name. Rejoining her body brings a blinding flash of pain.

Which sequel to Gayle Forman's If I Stay picks up the story years later from boyfriend Adam Wilde's point of view?

Where She Went finds the couple long since split, Mia having ended things when she left to study music. The sequel follows their reunion over a single night in New York.

What kind of vehicle smashes into the passenger side of the Hall family's old Buick in If I Stay?

A pickup truck swerved into them on the wintry road. Its driver, Mr. Dunlap, came away with only minor injuries, and Mia later wonders how much his life has changed.

Which composer's Cello Sonata No. 3 is playing on the car radio when the crash happens in If I Stay?

Beethoven is somehow still playing when Mia finds herself standing outside the wreck. To calm down she fingers the notes in the air, practising without an instrument.

Gran, Mia Hall's grandmother in If I Stay, says birds she sees are dead relatives visiting as what kind of being?

Angels are how Gran makes sense of loss. During the hospital vigil she spots a crossbill, rare for the area, and takes it for her late sister Glo come to support Mia.

With a second child on the way, Denny Hall goes back to school to teach which subject in If I Stay?

English classes at a middle school replaced touring with his band. He also traded his old wardrobe for a 1950s look, complete with bow ties, wingtip shoes and a pipe.

What job does Mia's mother Kat Hall skip on the morning of the crash in If I Stay?

Travel agent is Kat's day job, though she met Mia's father in her early twenties through the local music scene. She stays home so the whole family can be together.

In which language does Kim Schein pray for her injured best friend in the hospital chapel in If I Stay?

Hebrew comes to Kim when she slips away from her sobbing mother to find the chapel. Mia has shared Shabbat dinners with the Scheins, whose faith shapes much of Kim's life.

Whose arrival at the city hospital makes Mia Hall realise that her little brother Teddy has died in If I Stay?

Willow is a nurse at the local hospital, where Mia had pictured her looking after Teddy. Seeing her arrive in the city tells Mia that her brother no longer needs anyone at his side.

At her brother Teddy's birth in If I Stay, what does Mia Hall do as the first person he ever sees?

Mia cuts the cord at the birthing center, hours after her mother insisted on going holiday shopping despite her waters breaking. Her mother later jokes that Teddy imprinted on his sister.

Kim Schein, Mia Hall's best friend in If I Stay, is serious about which art form the way Mia is about cello?

Photography once took Kim up in a helicopter over Mount St. Helens with her uncle. The trip made her queasy, a memory that returns to Mia during her own airlift.

Who stages an impromptu concert outside intensive care in If I Stay so Adam Wilde can slip in to see Mia?

Brooke Vega fronts the indie band that Adam's group was due to open for that night. Her diversion works for a moment, but security escorts Adam out soon after he reaches Mia's room.

What everyday skill does Denny Hall finally learn in If I Stay once his wife is pregnant with their son Teddy?

Learning to drive a car ended Denny's years of cycling everywhere without even holding a licence. Kat insisted on it before the baby arrived.

In which Canadian city was the film of If I Stay shot, with a local band appearing as Adam Wilde's group?

Vancouver is where the cameras started rolling at the end of October 2013. Alternative band Hawking, based in the city, turn up on screen several times as Adam's bandmates.

Which piece of jewellery makes Mia Hall realise the body in the wrecked car is her own in If I Stay?

A silver bracelet on the wrist gives it away, just as Mia reaches in thinking she is pulling her little brother out. She pinches herself and feels nothing.

At the Halls' Labor Day party in If I Stay, what does Mia reluctantly do after insisting the styles would clash?

Mia joins the guitar jam on her cello, playing along with her father and Adam. She is surprised by how good the cello sounds beside the other strings.

Tips from which job does Adam Wilde save for two weeks to buy the first-date concert tickets in If I Stay?

Pizza delivery paid for the evening, as Adam admits once the concert is over. Mia had not even been sure it counted as a date when she agreed to come.

In which city does Mia Hall play her conservatory audition in If I Stay, escorted by Gramps after Gran sprains an ankle?

San Francisco gave the pair a weekend of shopping and dining once the audition was done. Gramps ended the trip with a tight hug in place of his usual handshake.

If I Stay author Gayle Forman began her career writing about young people's concerns for which magazine?

Seventeen gave Forman her start, and an article she wrote for it became the basis of her first young adult novel, Sisters in Sanity.

Which actor plays rising musician Adam Wilde in the 2014 film adaptation of Gayle Forman's If I Stay?

Jamie Blackley fronts the renamed band on screen. Its songs, among them a Smashing Pumpkins cover, were produced by indie producer Adam Lasus.

Which bandmate stops speaking to Denny Hall for months in If I Stay after Denny quits their band for his family?

Henry apologises only years later, once he has a daughter of his own and understands why a father would put his family first.

Which director finally made the 2014 film of If I Stay after two earlier directors had left the project?

R. J. Cutler was announced in January 2013. Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke had been attached first, then Brazilian filmmaker Heitor Dhalia, and both moved on.

Intensive care reminds Mia Hall in If I Stay of which place her mother once sneaked her into, where time vanished?

A casino has the same sealed-off feel as the ward. Mia had watched her mother play blackjack there for an hour that felt like fifteen minutes.

Before Teddy was born, Denny Hall's band in If I Stay was oddly popular in which country beyond the American Northwest?

Japan was the surprise market for a band that otherwise played Northwest college towns. Denny wrote its lyrics, which Gramps admired as poetry and missed once his son quit.

Which classical piece do the surgeons play while operating on Mia Hall in If I Stay, to her quiet disappointment?

Ride of the Valkyries wins the surgeons' debate over what to put on. As the operation drags on the disc is switched to jazz, which sets Mia thinking about her father.

Which sport does Adam Wilde play with Mia's father Denny Hall as he bonds with her family in If I Stay?

Basketball with her dad, plus a shared taste in music with both parents, made Adam at home in the Hall house. Mia suspects the romance might have stalled without that welcome.

What does Teddy Hall dress as for Halloween in If I Stay, in red pyjamas he proudly shows Mia and Adam?

A devil is what Teddy picks, and Mia and Adam assure him the result is terrifying. The talk reminds Adam that his band has a show booked for Halloween night.

At which holiday party in If I Stay do Mia Hall and Adam Wilde promise to be together twelve months on?

New Year's Eve, a few weeks before the crash, is when they make the pledge. With her audition done and his band touring, both fear they may be living far apart by then.

Which actress plays Mia's mother Kat Hall in the 2014 film of Gayle Forman's If I Stay?

Mireille Enos plays Kat opposite Joshua Leonard as Denny, with Stacy Keach as Gramps. The other three actresses here are in the film too, as a nurse, a family friend and Kim.