The Way We Fall - Megan Crewe
Synopsis: It starts with an itch you just can't shake. Then comes a fever and a tickle in your throat. A few days later, you'll be blabbing your secrets and chatting with strangers like they’re old friends. Three more, and the paranoid hallucinations kick in. And then you're dead. When a deadly virus begins to sweep through sixteen-year-old Kaelyn’s community, the government quarantines her island—no one can leave, and no one can come back. Those still healthy must fight for dwindling supplies, or lose all chance of survival. As everything familiar comes crashing down, Kaelyn joins forces with a former rival and discovers a new love in the midst of heartbreak. When the virus starts to rob her of friends and family, she clings to the belief that there must be a way to save the people she holds dearest. Because how will she go on if there isn't? (From Goodreads)
Not even kidding - ever since I've read this book I've been über paranoid. First, I've been seriously itchy all the time (that sounds gross, I know, but it's not that bad, I swear). I've been having random attacks of the back itches and the face itches (you know, when I have my gloves on and can't effectively itch). The itch you can't shake is the first stage of this disease. The next is the tickle in the throat...uhhhh....yeah. But all these things can be explained because of other things. Then I started coughing today and I was just like - ok, this is it, I have the virus and I'm going to die.
I'm such a hypochondriac sometimes.
But this isn't about me (at least not all the time) - this is about the book. Which, I ultimately had mixed feelings about. It's written in an epistolary/journal style, which I'm not always fond of. However, I really feel like that works here. I think a lot of people, including myself, have written those letters-I'll-never-send and that's what this whole book starts out as. It starts as a way to heal what broke in Kaelyn after a friendship/potentially-more-than-friendship ends. It's in those crucial first pages, when it's more of a letter than a journal, that I really connected with Kaelyn and came to care about her.
But in the end I was really confused and I didn't feel satisfied with the way it ended. I had so many questions. I get that you don't always get answers and often answers are left out on purpose - generally, I'm pretty down with that - but in this case it felt more like something was lacking, rather than being purposefully unanswered.
I could say great things about this book and I can point out things that I really didn't like. This is one that I'm on the fence about and I don't see myself swinging one way or the other. I do have to say that, even so, I read it about a week ago and I'm still thinking about it (even if it is just every time I get an itch or I cough). Books that are like this - the ones that deal with disastrous situations - always make you wonder what you would do if it were you. If nothing else, The Way We Fall, puts you there and - well, I kind of wonder. Are you the one who does everything possible to help? Do you steal food? Do you shoot people like they're zombies? Do you become desperate and reckless? It's interesting to think about, but not ever something you want to test.
The Way We Fall - Megan Crewe
Synopsis: It starts with an itch you just can't shake. Then comes a fever and a tickle in your throat. A few days later, you'll be blabbing your secrets and chatting with strangers like they’re old friends. Three more, and the paranoid hallucinations kick in. And then you're dead. When a deadly virus begins to sweep through sixteen-year-old Kaelyn’s community, the government quarantines her island—no one can leave, and no one can come back. Those still healthy must fight for dwindling supplies, or lose all chance of survival. As everything familiar comes crashing down, Kaelyn joins forces with a former rival and discovers a new love in the midst of heartbreak. When the virus starts to rob her of friends and family, she clings to the belief that there must be a way to save the people she holds dearest. Because how will she go on if there isn't? (From Goodreads)
Not even kidding - ever since I've read this book I've been über paranoid. First, I've been seriously itchy all the time (that sounds gross, I know, but it's not that bad, I swear). I've been having random attacks of the back itches and the face itches (you know, when I have my gloves on and can't effectively itch). The itch you can't shake is the first stage of this disease. The next is the tickle in the throat...uhhhh....yeah. But all these things can be explained because of other things. Then I started coughing today and I was just like - ok, this is it, I have the virus and I'm going to die.
I'm such a hypochondriac sometimes.
But this isn't about me (at least not all the time) - this is about the book. Which, I ultimately had mixed feelings about. It's written in an epistolary/journal style, which I'm not always fond of. However, I really feel like that works here. I think a lot of people, including myself, have written those letters-I'll-never-send and that's what this whole book starts out as. It starts as a way to heal what broke in Kaelyn after a friendship/potentially-more-than-friendship ends. It's in those crucial first pages, when it's more of a letter than a journal, that I really connected with Kaelyn and came to care about her.
But in the end I was really confused and I didn't feel satisfied with the way it ended. I had so many questions. I get that you don't always get answers and often answers are left out on purpose - generally, I'm pretty down with that - but in this case it felt more like something was lacking, rather than being purposefully unanswered.
I could say great things about this book and I can point out things that I really didn't like. This is one that I'm on the fence about and I don't see myself swinging one way or the other. I do have to say that, even so, I read it about a week ago and I'm still thinking about it (even if it is just every time I get an itch or I cough). Books that are like this - the ones that deal with disastrous situations - always make you wonder what you would do if it were you. If nothing else, The Way We Fall, puts you there and - well, I kind of wonder. Are you the one who does everything possible to help? Do you steal food? Do you shoot people like they're zombies? Do you become desperate and reckless? It's interesting to think about, but not ever something you want to test.
