View from the Stoplight


Final Impression:SUCH a let down. I read the first 200 pages pages and then skimmed the last part because I was bored but wanted to see how the story ends. The answer to that question? Not very well. I really want this concept to be done again with characters who actually ACT like the stakes are pretty high, since, you know, the world’s suppose to end and all. 1 star.

My full review of Tumble & Fall is on my blog. ( )

Great book. Takes one through what different young adults with some personal problems do to spend their last days on earth. Some sexual content and language--nothing too heavy. Ninth through 12th or mature 8th. ( )

TUMBLE & FALL by Alexandra Coutts is a story about the end of the world that doesn’t really revolve around the end of the world. Told from the point of view of three teenagers, the story is one of family, friendship, love, lose and surprisingly, new beginnings. When you know your way of life is about to end, maybe permanently, how do you spend those last few days? Zan, Sienna and Caden each go through an incredible journey over the course of the novel.

All three characters are living on the same island and while their stories never really intertwine, they do cross paths at moments to create a cohesive end to the story. Caden lives with his sister and their alcoholic mother, and while he doesn’t have any spectacular plans for his last few days before the asteroid hits, that all changes when his father shows and takes Caden away to the mainland for very sketchy reasons. Caden’s point of view was probably my least favourite, mostly because a lot of the motivations didn’t make sense to me, and it was very removed from the tone of the rest of the book. Zan’s scavenger hunt for a girl her deceased boyfriend Leo had a phone number written down on a receipt for was my favourite storyline. Along with Leo’s best friend Nick, Zan takes off for Boston to see if she can locate this girl and put to rest the question of whether Leo had been cheating on her. It’s an interesting view on questioning every thing you had known, and not being able to get answers from the person involved. It talks about trust, moving on, guilt and love. Sienna also has an interesting story, revolving more around family and what it means, and young love. I definitely felt she and Owen, a boy she knew from when her family used to summer on the island, fell in love extremely quickly, but Sienna is a teenager, and it’s the end of the world. Why wouldn’t she think she was in love. Usually I’m very against insta-love in books, but this time it made sense and worked.

The idea that an impending asteroid hitting the earth could wipe out life as we know it creates an intriguing background for a story that deals with a lot of tough themes; from depression, alcoholism, love and kidnapping to trust, what it means to be family, and kindness. Caden, Sienna and Zan all have a moment where their lives cross near the end of the book and then the last day before the asteroid is supposed to hit and everyone on the island comes together in moments of solidarity and hope and fear and waiting. I was extremely happy with the ending and even though some may not like the ultimately unresolved nature of it, I felt it fit the book perfectly and couldn’t have been done any other way.

TUMBLE & FALL by Alexandra Coutts is a quiet sort of disaster book. Focused more on the characters and how they choose to spend their possibly last days, the ideas of forgiveness, togetherness and hope in the face of despair really underline and highlight this slice-of-life story. Zan, Caden and Sienna all have wonderfully distinct voices that draw you in to their predicaments, decisions and lives. I couldn’t help myself from wondering what I would decide to do with my time if I knew the end was mostly inevitable. Who would I surround myself with and what would I do? What would you do? ( )

Overall this is a good story, and I love the premise of a week until the end of the world, and what these characters will do with their time.
Lots of things worked really well, I liked the presence and theme of family in this one. Given there are some really dysfunctional ones between the characters, but when it comes down to the end of the world, I like to see who is surrounding and left standing by your side. I also really connected with Sienna and her depression. It is something that I battle with myself and I think it was portrayed pretty well and I def. understood where she was coming from. We get off to a sad and gripping start with her, and she was my favorite of the three.
I also thought that Zan's loss of Leo, her boyfriend was a powerful motivator in the story, and I just wish that it was written in first person, because I think that I would have been more invested in the characters than I already was.
With the beginnings of new love, questioning things you thought were certain, love whether romantic, friendship or familial, healing and grief are all pushed to the max when you try to cram everything that's important into the last week with the end of the world staring you in the face.
There was some insta-love, but I guess given the circumstances, anything the characters felt would be amped up, so I guess I can excuse it. And I will go back to the third person as another reason that I didn't fully feel Sienna and Owen together. I wanted to really root for them and be invested in their blossoming relationship but I just didn't quite as much as I wanted to.
What I really loved though was seeing what was important--finding truth, forgiveness, and being around those you love--all showed itself in different ways in the characters. They all seem so disconnected when the story started, but I liked seeing everything coming together. Seeing how they all handled the last week, their feelings, and their lives so differently, but there are still similarities that seemed to be universal.
I also was a little disappointed that Zan and Sienna's voices weren't more distinct, and again I will go back to my preference for 1st person, because I think that would have given them a greater chance to have their own personalities and for their voices to shine through. But as it was, I didn't have the smoothest transitions as it switched back and forth between their stories because I was getting details confused.
Tumble and Fall really caught me at the beginning, though it did slow some for me in the middle it was still enough to keep it going. But I thought the ending was spectacular. I think that all of the elements worked together so well, and I couldn't imagine it all turning out so fitting for the story.

Bottom Line: Things working both for and against it, but I couldn't put it down.

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: Very emotional story filled with heartfelt moments, love and hope. The pacing was a little slow and I didn’t love all the characters, but overall it was a good read.

Opening Sentence: THE DAY SHE GETS OUT, IT FEELS LIKE THE END.

Excerpt: No

The Review:

What would you do if you knew that you only had a week left to live? Would you turn to your family to try and find comfort or would you turn to strangers to try and find a good time? An asteroid is heading to earth and they are saying it is going to be the end of the human race. In Tumble & Fall you follow the stories of Sienna, Zan, and Caden.

Sienna has spent the last few years of her life in a mental hospital. Her mother died when she was young and she never fully recovered from it. Her father has come to pick her up, because they are saying that the end of the world is coming. He wants to take her brother and her to their beach house they loved when they were kids. He also tells her that he has met someone and that they are going to get married. It is a lot for Sienna to take in all at once, she is back in the house that is filled with memories of her mother and now she has to try and accept her dad’s new fling. Soon after returning to the island she meets one of her childhood friends. Owen is ambitious and has so much hope, but Sienna has to decide who she wants to spend her last days with. Her loving family who has made mistakes over the years, but has always loved her or the boy she just met, and has fallen madly in love with?

Zan was madly in love with Leo. They grew up together and once they started dating she thought they would be together forever. Then there was a horrible accident and all her dreams of happy ever after went out the window. Even though it has been months since Leo died, Zan still thinks about him all the time. One day she is looking through an old book that belong to Leo and she finds a receipt from the day he died and it has a girl’s name and number on it. Was Leo everything Zan thought he was or did he have secrets she never knew about him. She and Leo’s best friend Nick decide to track down the girl on the receipt and find out.

Caden has lived his whole life on the island. His mother is a hopeless drunk and his dad skipped out when he was a kid. He is pretty content to live out the rest of his days partying and not caring. Then the unthinkable happens, he dad kidnaps him. He has always resented his father for leaving him, but he still wanted to get to know him. He always wondered if he was like his father, or if he would end up a drunk like his mom. Now Caden has a second chance to save his relationship with his father, but does his father deserve to get the last few days of his life?

The story is told from all three of the characters point of view. My favorite character was Zan. Her story was very heartfelt and believable. She had purpose and drive even in the face of adversity. I enjoyed reading her story and loved her as a character. Sienna was harder to connect with for me. She was very unpredictable which didn’t fit her story very well. Emotionally she went very up and down and she changed her mind a lot. I felt that her romance wasn’t very convincing, they just barely met and all the sudden they couldn’t live without each other. I know when a crisis happens people act differently, it just wasn’t very believable for me. I enjoyed parts of her story, but I think it could have been better. Now for Caden. I felt he could have been left out of the book. I felt that his story was juvenile and boring. He is a coward most of the book, but he does have some redeeming moments. I just didn’t connect with his story and I found myself not caring what happened to him. For this book to work the characters needed to make a lasting impression and some just didn’t quite get there.

This was a very interesting book for me. There were three different stories being told and the only thing they had in common was that the world was ending and they all took place on the same island. As you can tell I enjoyed some of the stories much more than others. There were some really heartfelt beautiful moments in the book, and then there were juvenile unnecessary moments as well. This book really does make you think about what is important in your life and it is good at stirring your emotions. The pacing was a little slow for me and I struggled a little to finish the book. Overall, this was a good read for me. I would recommend this to anyone that enjoys a good YA contemporary filled with heartache, love and emotion.

Notable Scene:

She is ready to tuck the receipt back between the pages when she notices the printed date. The numbers are light and sketchy, but under the lamp she begins to make them out. This time, she gasps.

It’s a date she knows too well. The date Leo was supposed to take her to the last movie at a ? lm festival at the library, a documentary about the importance of keeping bees. The date his best friend Nick asked him to do an emergency favor, something having to do with a part for Nick’s boat in New Bedford. The date Leo said yes, because it sounded like an adventure and Leo always said yes to adventures, and what’s the big deal? They’d catch the movie on DVD, and since when did she care so much about bees?

The date he left in the rain, and never came home.

Zan slams the book shut. Before she knows why, she flicks it like a Frisbee across the room, where it skids along the floor and stops at the wall with a dull, lifeless thud.

FTC Advisory: Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Macmillan provided me with a copy of Tumble & Fall. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )