If I Left

by Ajay Joseph

Jasmine's life has started to change. She feels alone and has been told that she's never going to be good enough. All Jasmine wants is to be someone else, but knows that it's never going to happen. And it gets to the point where she wants to end her life. Adam has been best friends with Jasmine for ten years. After noticing this change in her life, he gets a chance to tell her how special she really is and that her life is not a mistake. Despite having his own life, Adam does his best to be there for Jasmine and help her stay alive. Written by Ajay Joseph, If I Left, is a moving story about a boy and a girl who learn that friendship can overcome anything.

230 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 2014

Reviews

[Maryem Benmansour · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I Left by Ajay Joseph




Jasmine’s life was an ideal one for all the people out there, until one sudden day her older sister Cindy leaves the house. Cindy has been a role model to Jasmine, which always looked up to her every time an obstacle hindered her throughout her life-changing journey. The day her sister decided to move on and left the house, Jasmine’s life commences to change. Alex, her boyfriend let’s her go, Maya his new girlfriend starts bullying her, and her parents make her realize that Cindy was their favorite daughter. Jasmine starts to feel alone with nothing to hang onto hence, decides to put her life in jeopardy. The only person left to support her was Adam, her best friend. He has been by her side since the day they met near their neighborhood, about ten years ago. After noticing that the joyful and amazing Jasmine was turning into a sorrowful and unsociable mess he takes the chance to mention how special she is to his eyes and that her life is certainly not a mistake. Despite his own path where he too finds obstructions, Adam does his best to aid Jasmine in order for her to stay alive. Thus, throughout their journey a boy and a girl learn that their friendship can overcome anything that stops them towards their happiness and success.



If I Left makes the audience members enter into a breathtaking journey while reading it. The suspense and mystery were right where they belonged and the fact that the author Ajay Joseph commenced the story with Adam trying to stop Jasmine from throwing herself from the bridge gives the reader some questions. For instance, will he save her, what horrific situation occurred to make Jasmine want to take away her life, or what monster caused her to even think about suicide? I adored the sensations and ideas that rushed through my mind when I read this novel. It made me experience many emotions, such as sadness, fear, happiness, and disgust. The author and novel are not famous at all and I personally think that he should be recognized for his hard work and marvelous story. This novel involves inspiring characters and helpful messages, which the readers will eventually learn from. Hence, I gave it a rating of 5 stars out 5. To conclude, If I Left is a novel from which I learned a lot of lessons that certainly will aid me throughout the future.



Throughout this fascinating novel, Ajay Joseph amazingly explores the inner self of Jasmine who has been fighting to overcome the gift of life. At such a time it is very difficult to picture how she was able to survive the arduous society that surrounded her and still be able to emerge into such a strong and powerful woman. Unable to trust anyone but Adam she always kept what she thought inside hidden by the mask she wore. The people around her only wanted to see her give up, to see her fail; hence, she had to learn to keep their atrocious comments out of her mind. This novel very well explains her life and the way she managed to keep it going. Her astonishing experience only made her stronger than what she used to be. I recommend this novel to all the people out there who have to fight against a huge devil, known as the society they live in to continue their lives, as well as for the people that are victims of bullying. They will certainly find themselves in this novel, which will aid them on their journey of learning to become stronger people. To sum up, If I Left is a very inspiring story, which I relished reading and I really hope that the people who choose to read it will feel the same.

[Chloe Morley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was book was quite good. The flow of the book I think worked well, it kept me wanting to keep going. The ending though, being someone who’s aware of how, while there are some really good people out there, there are also horrible people who treat people badly and do toxic things, I just kind of didn’t buy the ending. It’s a good ending, I just find it hard to believe. I would like to think the bully of the story, Maya, realised the consequences of her actions and learned to behave better, and in an ideal world she would. The parents though, you here loads of stories of abusive parents where they’re not genuinely sorry. So when they instantaneously started acting like they care about Jasmine, my mind was cold and unbelieving. There are plenty of people out there good at faking that they care when they want to look good and manipulate people. It’s an ideal ending, it just personally didn’t convince me. If this was real life I’d be waiting for the parents to mess up again. They neglected her and emotionally abused her. Wake up calls can work for some people, but sometimes people stay cold hearted to some people, even if they do or don’t act like that with everyone.