If Only Themes

Mortality's not just a theme of If Only; it's the theme. Sophie is already dead when the book opens, but we get to know her through the memories of her thirteen-year-old daughter, Corinna. As if ei...

We're willing to bet that the word frenemies was invented by a middle-schooler. Here's the good news: There will never be another time in your life when you feel so much pressure to be normal. In I...

How much more isolated can you get than being the only kid without a mom? When Corinna's friends talk about whose mother is going to pick them up after school in If Only, she thinks about what woul...

In If Only, Corinna already feels separate enough from her friends without everybody getting boobs while she stays flat chested. The other eighth-grade girls are moving on up from sports bras to re...

Going to a country where you don't speak the language is one thing; going to a country where you can't even figure out the toilets is another. In If Only, when Corinna and her dad go to Tokyo to vi...

In If Only, there's a gaping hole where her mother used to be, an empty chair at the kitchen table, and she and her dad have to redefine themselves as a family of two. But they have no idea where t...

Obviously, if you're dying of cancer, you're suffering—we don't have to explain that one to you—but in If Only, Sophie's suffering has an end, while Corinna's doesn't. Sure, things will get eas...

Having watched her mom die of cancer, Corinna's afraid she'll come down with it. too. She's having those mysterious stomachaches, after all, and her body's certainly not cooperating on the boobs-an...