Tara's Reads: This is Falling

First, I had to remember how to breathe. Then, I had to learn how to survive. Two years, three months and sixteen days had passed since I was the Rowe Stanton from before, since tragedy stole my youth and my heart went along with it.

When I left for college, I put a thousand miles between my future and my past. I’d made a choice—I was going to cross back to the other side, to live with the living. I just didn’t know how.

And then I met Nate Preeter.

An All-American baseball player, Nate wasn’t supposed to notice a ghost-of-a-girl like me. But he did. He shouldn’t want to know my name. But he did. And when he learned my secret and saw the scars it left behind, he was supposed to run. But he didn’t.

My heart was dead, and I was never supposed to belong to anyone. But Nate Preeter had me feeling, and he made me want to be his. He showed me everything I was missing.

And then he showed me how to fall.

Okay, first I just need to say before a month and a half ago, I had never heard of Ginger Scott. I know, but it’s true. Until I saw the blurb on NetGalley for How We Deal With Gravity, I didn’t know she existed. Gravity was not her first book, but it’s the first book I read. It pulled at me, so I did what any normal obsessive book reader would do… I cyber stalked her. I liked her Facebook page and started following her on twitter, all the while still thinking – who is this Ginger Scott lady?

So there I am trolling NetGalley for my next read, it’s really hit or miss lately and I see This is Falling, by Ginger Scott and thought to myself – heck yeah! So, I request the book and wait (not so) patiently to see if they’ll approve me… and they did…and I fell.

This is Falling is another work of blending a serious situation with a beautiful story. You almost forget how terribly tragic what happened to her is because you are so focused on how she’s getting through her day to day now…and I’ll be honest, I was completely smitten with Nate and he was very distracting!

Rowe is a beautifully broken girl who has been drowning for over two years. She’s lived at home, been homeschooled and barely spoken except to a hand full of people in all that time. She’s been through something no child should ever go through, and unfortunately there is no rhyme or reason that makes her tragedy make sense…to anyone. There were times I did get frustrated with her character, the naivety, the back and forth, the inability to just move forward…but then I have never been through what Rowe had been through. I don’t know where I would be, or if I’d have ever been able to leave my room after.

Nate is the boy you want to believe exists when you are young. He’s honestly perfect. He really is the All-American, boy next door, take home and introduce to your parents, but still funny, sexy, charming – ok, now I’m gushing. He’s witty and persistent and I loved that about Nate. Most guys wouldn’t have even noticed Rowe, except maybe in passing but he saw her and knew she was worth it. But more importantly, he kept trying.

Something about his existence challenges Rowe to fight harder, swim stronger, trying to reach the break and pull herself to safety. And he makes you want that too just as much for him as you want it for Rowe.

This book is told in the dual POV, which is always hit or miss for me. Sometimes that back and forth can be distracting, especially like in this case where the back and forth can happen in the same chapter…but Scott nailed it. I was so sucked into the story, I didn’t even notice. Their voices were different, but not distractingly so. It just made the story…more.

If I had one criticism (I know, I know but I can’t help myself sometimes) …it would be that I felt like I could have used a little more at the end. I know there is another story in the series, and I’m sure that we will see Rowe and Nate even though the story is Ty and Cass (secondary characters in this story – but totally loveable), but I just felt like I wasn’t quite done with these two and needed a little more. For me, I think it would have pushed the book from 4.5 to 5 solid stars.

Either way, I loved the story. So, Ginger Scott…this is me, and I have fallen.