After the Fall (Charity Norman Reading-Group Fiction)

by Charity Norman

[Leah]

When I heard about Charity Norman’s second novel After The Fall I was really looking forward to reading it as it sounded fantastic. I’m a big fan of Jodi Picoult and to see the novel likened to a Jodi Picoult novel, I was thrilled. It’s took me a little while to get around to it – it’s length daunting me a little bit, it’s a massive book! Not that you’ll notice that once you start reading, believe me. It’s a novel I thoroughly enjoyed and I’m pleased to know Charity will have a new novel out in the summer, I’ll definitely be reading it, as After The Fall really impressed me.

When I first started reading After The Fall, I was a bit concerned because it didn’t grip me immediately. I read about 80 pages before going on to do a 4 day nightshift and when it came to picking it back up, I wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to. I sort of avoided it a bit. But then I started reading it again, and as we learn more of the McNamara’s lives in New Zeland, and as we get to the bit where we learn just how Finn fell, the more excited I got. It’s definitely the kind of book that grows on you, and once I got reading, I really got reading. So much so that I finished the book in the one sitting after picking it back up, which is always fabulous.

I found the story fascinating. It opens as Finn falls from the balcony, and it flits between Martha at Finn’s bedside in the present, before leaping back and letting us see what it was that made the McNamara’s move to New Zealand, and tells the story up to Finn falling. It’s really clever. The bits with Martha at Finn’s bedside are ridiculously gripping because you’re DESPERATE to know just what happened to Finn. I just wanted to scream at Martha to tell me what had happened! But I also liked reading about the move to New Zealand and how Martha’s daughter Sacha struggled, and how moving to a new country isn’t easy at all (I know, I moved to Tenerife when I was 13). I thought New Zealand sounded fantastic, it sounds like such a beautiful country. I found the struggles the family face very real, and the way the novel segued off with what happens to Sacha was mind-blowing. It was absolutely unexpected and anyone reading the book will think that, and it blew the novel apart.

I really enjoyed After The Fall. Yes, there was a bit of a shaky start, but once the novel hit its stride, and once we saw the family move to New Zealand, I found it really hard to put it down after that. Norman has written a very compelling novel, which highlights something I’d never personally heard about, but which seems like a very rife problem. I had my suspicions about what had happened to Finn, and I felt very bad for blaming who I blamed, when it wasn’t that person at all. The actual culprit was a shocker, a total shocker. It’s the sort of thing you don’t see coming! I very much look forward to Norman’s next novel, she’s an accomplished writer and does very well to set the scene and build the tension. I can see why this is a Richard & Judy pick, it’s a very well-deserved pick.