What do readers think of Girl Falling by Hayley Scrivenor? Write your own review.

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

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.

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.

I admit that asked for this book based on the sapphic description. The relationships tiptoed up to the edge of menage a trois, and added a "will they, won't they?" element to the book.
Overall, this complex, sometimes convoluted novel kept me returning to previous pages to see what I'd missed. Multiple times I was sure that I'd identified the culprit, only to find, at the end, that I was wrong...or was I?

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.

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.

I have done many reviews for Bookbrowse, but this is the first time I have ever had difficulty reviewing a book. I feel conflicted, as there were many things I did like about Girl Falling by Hayley Scrivenor. Yet, overall, it wasn't a book that held my attention. It is a psychological mystery, and I love mysteries. The characters were well portrayed: Three strong women, Finn, Daphne, and Magdu. It's a mystery for everyone, but it is LGBTQ inclusive, and I really appreciated that. Finn and Daphne have been best friends for years, but Daphne is very controlling. Finn has just fallen in love with Magdu, and Daphne suggests they all go climb a cliff together. The book gets off to a big start as Magdu falls to her death when something goes very wrong. The story revolves around Finn and Daphne, with flashbacks of Finn and Magdu's blossoming relationship. What went wrong up there? Was it an accident, was it intentional? It kept my attention only because I wanted to know how it ended, but I found my interest waning throughout the book. The characters were complex and interesting, but I found the ending disappointing and abrupt. I did like Hayley Scrivenor's writing, though. After I finished the book, I immediately went to the library to get a more recent book of hers, Dirt Creek, and I haven't put it down yet. Like Girl Falling, it has LGBTQ characters. Now I am confused. Maybe I need to reread Girl Falling!

The book started out ok, but left me feeling more and more uncomfortable the farther in I got. The main two characters each had their own problems, and the relationship between them was strange. Adding the third character added to the strangeness. It was a thriller, and kept me guessing, but there was so much going back and forth in time, and so many descriptive phrases, that it diluted the suspense. I just kept thinking.....these people need help. I would give it three and a half stars.