Tumble & Fall

by Alexandra Coutts

With an asteroid set to strike Earth in just one week, three teens on an island off the Atlantic Coast wrestle with love, friendship, family, and regret as they decide how to live their final days.

With an asteroid set to strike Earth in just one week, three teens on an island off the Atlantic Coast wrestle with love, friendship, family, and regret as they decide how to live their final days. The plot contains profanity and drug use.

• ISBN10: 0374378614
• ISBN13: 9780374378615
• Publish Date: 17 September 2013
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 372
• Language: English

Reviews

[violetpeanut]

I'm not going to give this a star rating since I didn't finish it but that in itself should tell you how I feel about this book. The idea of it is interesting and it had some elements of romance and mystery that were intriguing but overall I was so bored and uninterested in the characters that I didn't care to find out what was going to happen. I also really hated the POV. It's written in present tense from a third person omniscient point of view. There was nothing really wrong with that, it just felt kind of awkward to me.

Overall I found this boring and disappointing and wouldn't recommend it.

[Suz @ Bookish Revelations]

Tumble & Fall is a new post-apocalyptic young adult novel that you will either enjoy or not. More intellectual than emotional, Alexandra Coutts has created a world that will leave you with some thought provoking scenarios as the novel draws to a close. It's a beautiful coming of age story where love, friendship, family, and hope play an important key role at the end of the world. The characters voices shine through the pages, as their courage and bravery takes them further in life. Although, the dual point of views can leave things a bit confusing at times.

Coutts did a wonderful job of showcasing the journey that each of the three main characters took throughout the course of this novel. There is an emotional connection that I was able to share with each of them, moreover, I did feel as if the intellectual aspect was more prominent though. That only made the novel that more entertaining and compelling, in opinion. This is a heart breaking and inspiring story, of finding the courage to discover who you are, love to the tips of your fingers and beyond the telling, learning to go back home and simply say goodbye to the family that you have discovered you love. There is so much beautiful potential wrapped up in each of the characters storylines, that you can't help but feel something for them.

Coutts has written a very thoughtful, emotional, and intellectual contemporary post-apocalyptic novel that will stay with readers in many ways, whether it's good or bad. It's incredibly realistic in the sense that these characters have know what was going to happen all along and are resigned to their fate. No one is going to be spared and they all have the same end result to look forward to. If you are a fan of contemporary novels that deal with self-discovery, love, and big decisions, but you're not crazy about post-apocalyptic or dystopian novels then this is the book that I would suggest to you. I actually found myself enjoying, while it still had a few drawbacks and things that I felt held further potential, all in all I think it was a pretty good read.

I would suggest that you either pick up a copy for yourself, borrow it from a friend or the library, and find out for yourself whether or not it's going to be a book for you.

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews

3.5 stars

Tumble & Fall is such a tough book for me to review because there were so many things I loved about this book, but there were also some things I didn't like. I think it's going to be really hard for me to touch on everything, while still conveying how much I enjoyed the book!

Tumble & Fall follows three different plot lines/characters, which all converge at the end. We have Sienna: a girl who just got released from rehab for attempted suicide; Zan: a girl mourning the loss of her boyfriend's untimely death; and Caden: a boy with an alcoholic mother and an absent father who abandoned him when he was young. We learn about each characters' stories and relationships in alternating chapters, as they face the inevitable asteroid collision and live out their final days. It actually reminded me of those movies that always get released around Christmastime that have like 4 characters with different stories, but they all come together at the end. Tumble & Fall is very similar to that! (But not at all Christmas-y, hehe.)

I think the easiest thing to do now is break it down into likes and dislikes:

Likes

* I like how different each of the characters were. I really cared about their stories and got invested in their individual lives and relationships!

* The book brilliantly feels sad and hopeful at the same time. Some scenes seriously made me want to cry, but others made me feel happy, despite the inevitable doom!

* I like how imperfect the stories in the book are. It's not all depressing, but it's not all smiles and butterflies either; there is a great mixture. Some things work out wonderfully and unexpectedly, but others completely fail and don't pan out at all. There were a lot of things I didn't expect to happen, because I thought the book would go one way (everything working out) or another (total doomsday with everything going to shit).

* I LOVED Zen's chapters so much! She definitely stole the spotlight, I think. Hers were most interesting, and kind of most tragic. Despite a few things that went unresolved (see dislikes), I think her character was the most developed, and I definitely found myself relating to her more than the others.

Dislikes

* The book may have been too short and had too many characters to really dig deep. We have 384 pages to alterante between three different characters, each with their own stories, problems, and relationships. As a result, it kind of feels like the author only scratched the surface. Perhaps the book would have been more intense and heart-wrenching if it focused on only one character, or if the book was longer.

* Sort of expanding on the previous point, I feel like some things weren't quite resolved. I almost didn't know what to think of them. In particular I'm referring to Zen's story. Zen's story was all about her still grieving over her boyfriend's death from 10 months prior. At one point, she questions his loyalty to her, and she has a passionate moment with his best friend, Nick. Then, at the end, she realizes that her boyfriend was loyal all along, and she forgives herself for doubting him. But, I never quite understood how the rest panned out for her. Did she ever move on from her boyfriend? Was she able to put his death behind her? And what about Nick? Did she want to date him now? Or did she officially decide that was a mistake? I felt like her journey was supposed to be about accepting her boyfriend's death and moving on, but I'm not sure that she ever did.

* There is a little bit of insta-love in Sienna's chapters. Keep in mind that this book spans like seven days. Sienna goes from meeting someone to actually saying "I'm in love with you" in that time period.

* I think I was most disconnected from Caden's chapters. A lot of things in his story just felt so random and oddly strung together.

The Ending: Somewhere in between

Tumble & Fall has a bit of a gutsy, 'leave it to your imagination' ending. I'm kind of not sure whether to list this as a positive or negative, because I'm a little undecided. I usually hate it when books are left open-ended, but I think it kind of works in Tumble & Fall. Although maybe I was left wanting more, I was also left with a ton to think about, and I really like that!

Overall

Overall, I really enjoyed Tumble & Fall as I was reading it. It was such a breeze to get through and I was easily whipping through the pages! I think most of my "dislikes" come from after I finished the book and spent time reflecting on it. I think that with a bit more expansion and polish, Tumble & Fall could be a really fantastic book, but for now I'm sticking with "pretty good".