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Barbara H. (Thomasville, GA)

Friendship to the end....
Another amazing Australian author!! This is a powerful novel about friendship, all its nuances and its power to destroy another. A co-dependent relationship existed for many years between Daphne and Finn, developing and morphing into something else - "like a vine that snakes around a tree until the tree and vine can no longer be separated.....holding each other up...." This story is also about secrets and how a secret in the telling can destroy someone and a secret in the knowing can give a person power over another.

The author graphically depicts the rawness of each character - and brings them to a level of development like the coming together of a great symphony.. I had to read this novel with new acceptance and tolerance and lose prejudices. It is totally amazing how the mind can block the obvious to keep one from seeing what is truly in front of them.....as this novel does. This was a wonderful novel!!

Becky H. (Manassas, VA)

GIRL FALLING by Hayley Scrivenor
Insidious and evil. Dark and depressing. Murder or accident? And yet I HAD to keep reading. The writing was beautifully done, keeping ones desire to know and understand at a high pitch. Three women, one evil, one good, and one …also evil?...also good?….which is it? Who is doing the manipulating and who is being manipulated?
Interspersing the darkness are lovely descriptions of the landscape of Australia. The mechanics of rope climbing become a part of the story. The characters and situations are believable.
There were many times I was ready to put this book down and not pick it up again. But the depth of the writing kept me reading. It is difficult to recommend the book because there is so much of the book that is triggering. I could only recommend it to a limited number of people and I would have to know them and their reading habits well to offer this book to them. There is little light or joyous to be gotten from reading FALLING GIRL. I would not use this book in a book group because of too many triggers and no real resolution.

4 stars for the writing, 2 stars for the darkness of the story

sms

engaging book
Girl Falling held my attention - I did not want to stop reading! The author provided a deeply touching view of relationships. It made me think about how we may share ourselves differently with different people. My only disappointment was in the ending. When I looked back in the story, I felt like I had been misled and manipulated even though I tried to appreciate the revealing of the unexpected. Sometimes when this happens, it just clicks that the underlying hints were always there but that did not happen for me with this book.

Kristen H. (Lowell, MA)

Relationships can be deadly
This book pulls you in right from the beginning with the relationships and growth of some of the characters and the suspenseful plot. The ending was one that some people may figure out way before it is revealed but it took me a bit longer and then it was like a light bulb went off. I voluntarily reviewed an advance readers copy of this book.

Mary Lou C. (Shenadoah Junction, WV)

What's the reality?
This book was okay but far from great. I'm assuming the author intended a psychological thriller/mystery. The characters were just strange and the ending left me wondering what was real and what was in somebody's head. Sorry, author, I just didn't get it. I'd rate it at 2.5.

Dianne Y. (Stuart, FL)

An Australian based novel
Girl Falling by Hayley Scrivenor
Girl Falling is a novel that takes place in Australia with various themes including friendship, romance, loyalty, acceptance, secrets, crime vs accident, and police investigations.
The author constructs the story by alternating chapters between present day and the past allowing the reader to piece it together as they read.
There are a number of very vivid descriptions of physical places and rock climbing. However, the descriptions of people and their interactions felt more forced and geared more toward a young adult audience. I also found some of the detailed descriptions in the story to be of mundane or unimportant things that felt like unnecessary filler and did not add to the story.
While I found some of the written dialog and details to be more typical of a Young Adult novel, I would not recommend this for teens because of the numerous suicide references. Also, the LBGTQ focus could result in it being banned as a YA novel in some locals.
I would not say this is one of the favorite books I have read this year. However, the short chapters and alternating chapters quickly move the story along, and it has a lot of twists and turns along the way making it a fun summer read.

...2 more reader reviews

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