Madeline Usher is doomed.
She has spent her life fighting fate, and she thought she was succeeding. Until she woke up in a coffin. Ushers die young. Ushers are cursed. Ushers can never leave their house, a house that haunts and is haunted, a house that almost seems to have a mind of its own. Madeline's life—revealed through short bursts of memory—has hinged around her desperate plan to escape, to save herself and her brother. Her only chance lies in destroying the house.
In the end, can Madeline keep her own sanity and bring the house down? The Fall is a literary psychological thriller, reimagining Edgar Allan Poe's classic The Fall of the House of Usher.
I somehow missed this when I read the blurb for the first time, but The Fall is based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe entitled The Fall of the House of Usher. I haven't read this story, so I can't compare it. But I could sense that Bethany Griffin was really trying very hard to spin it out into a full novel - and when I say she spun it, I mean she stretched it. The Fall was far longer than it needed to be. It drags to the point of boredom; much of it says largely the same thing. As a result, Madeline's few interactions with new people feel brief and forced and the ending left me confused at the anti-climax. It had such potential; I wish it could have been edited a little more thoroughly.
The Fall is initially told in a mess of chapters from Madeline at different ages and a few snippets from her ancestor's diary. It was all very confusing and I kept losing track of which plot was when. The chapters all told variations on the same thing: Madeline is lonely without her brother in a cursed house. About halfway through, this jumping around stops and the main narrative turns to Madeline at sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. There is little to no sign of any other chapters to break this up, except for the occasional diary entry. Whilst I did find this easier to read, it was a jarring change and it felt like the author couldn't make her mind up over which way she wanted to tell the story. It didn't work with both.
Bethany Griffin's writing was stark and undescriptive, but not unpleasant. If it had been filled with literary devices, Madeline's strange experiences would not have been as easily viewed as her reality. The factual account from her eyes blurred the line between reality and fiction. However, don't hold your breath if you're expecting to be chilled by this; at no time did I feel the urge to hide behind a pillow.
Despite its flaws, The Fall was not an entirely unpleasant read. The lack of Madeline's knowledge about the outside world lent it a dreamlike, otherworldly quality. The sentient house was the most intriguing and spooky part, and I would have liked to see more of its 'actions'. The romance, however, could have been done without; it did not add anything and felt as if it was just there for the sake it. If you don't want anything too scary and are prepared to skim read in places, then The Fall would not be a bad choice, but be warned of a certain sense of disappointment you will get once finished.
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