“I clap so that I can hold on to this feeling. I clap because I know what will happen when I stop. It’s the same thing that happens when I turn off a really good movie - one that I’ve lost myself to - which is that I’ll be thrown back to my own reality and something hollow will settle in my chest.”

American young adult fiction author

Gayle Forman is an American young adult fiction author, best known for her novel If I Stay. The book reached the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list for Young Adult Fiction and was later adapted into a film of the same name. She writes for young adult readers and is most closely associated with If I Stay, the work that brought her widest recognition. Her public profile rests on that novel and its film adaptation, which extended its reach beyond the page.