What readers think of The Shock of The Fall, plus links to write your own review.

Where the Moon Isn't opens your eyes to a world seen by someone with mental illness. As the world becomes more open to mental illness, we need to understand how the affected brain processes information.
Matt lost his brother when he was young. As he grows up , it is harder and harder for him to leave his brother behind. Nathan Filer takes us through these emotional years and show us someone who struggles to understand life.

Matt spills out his painful story in fits and starts both of insight and delusion. His struggle to come to terms with his reality is believably portrayed. I was reminded of Paddy Clarke Ha-ha-ha by Roddy Doyle.

At first I thought the drawings and multiple type faces, fonts, and spacing might be mere gimmicks. Not so. This powerful novel by Nathan Filer uses all of these devices to enhance the telling of nineteen-year-old Matthew Homes' harrowing story.

As Matt battles schizophrenia -- and all the ensuing humiliations, set backs, and attitudes surrounding mental illness -- he is on a quest to discover what actually happened on a holiday night at the beach in Ocean Cove Park nine years earlier. On this night Matt's older brother Simon, a Down Syndrome child with "a beautiful smiling face that looked like the moon" dies.

For the next ten years, guilt-ridden Matt, whose parents are devastated, fights his way through the past to an understanding and the redemption of a memorial.

Readers who enjoyed the carefully crafted voice of the boy with Asperger's disease in Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night will find that Filer has captured beautifully the voice of a boy in search of truth and sanity in this tragically moving story of memory, madness, family resilience, and enduring love.

"Where the Moon Isn't" is definitely on the strange side. Unlike a lot of coming-of-age tales it doesn't have a morale; underlying, concluding or otherwise. If you like family-centered drama with a dash of mental illness, dysfunction and a protagonist who occasionally talks directly to you, you might want to give this book a try. It feels a bit like a Jim Crace novel - it can seem disjointed but hang in there as there is a small dose of redemption at the end. All in all a good read.

The story opens with a family's holiday. There are four people. These characters are mother, father, and two sons. Soon one of these people will be gone. This book deals with a boy's relationships, his first job, his first apartment and other challenges in his life. Does he have the life skills to work? This is not a spellbinder but it deals with relationships and feelings. It is written through a boy's eyes. It is interesting and different. I would recommend it for book clubs, teens, and for those who want a different type of book.

The narrator is Matthew, a teenage boy who witnessed the traumatic death of his brother when they were both young. He has repressed his intense grief and guilt, which ultimately leads to a breakdown, hospitalization, and diagnosis of schizophrenia. Nathan Filer writes brilliantly as the voice of this young man, and as a reader I empathized with Matthew a great deal. With that being said, this was a difficult read for me because Matthew's thoughts and narration are somewhat disjointed - at times I felt like I was plodding through it, which is not my favorite way to read. I would highly recommend this book to anyone whose life is affected by mental illness.