Before I Fall Themes

When teen Samantha Kingston and her friends Lindsay, Ally, and Elody are involved in a car accident on a Friday night at the beginning of Before I Fall, it seems like just that: an accident. Sam wakes up the next morning and believes that the accident was a nightmare—until the prior day’s events begin repeating, and she realizes that the accident may have been more than just chance. Each day for seven…

Sam Kingston and her friends Lindsay, Ally, and Elody are the queen bees of Thomas Jefferson high school in the affluent community of Ridgeview, Connecticut. Obsessed with fashion, social media, social capital, and, indeed, themselves, the four girls torment underclassmen, nerds like Kent McFuller, and “freaks” like Juliet Sykes. The social ecosystem of Thomas Jefferson is both fragile and rigid, and it often seems there’s only one direction in which…

The plot of Before I Fall plays out in a time loop that rewinds, resets, and replays each day. This loop repeats seven times in total, and although it often ends in death, pain, and suffering, the events of Friday, February 12th restart the next morning as if nothing has happened. The narrative of Before I Fall is designed to frustrate the reader just as deeply as it frustrates its protagonist, Samantha Kingston, who…