This is the part of limbo we don’t talk about, how our individual futures don’t include each other.
From the very first sentence, or maybe even before that, when I read the blurb and saw that gorgeous cover, I knew that not only was The Girl Who Fell something I had to get my hands on, but also that I’d love it! And in all honesty, it was SO much better than anything I had dared to expect!
“Crushing is safe,” she said. “It only involves one person… you. And you can be in control.”
Reading the entire book in one sitting, in the wee hours of the night, I can only say WOW! Just WOW! As a third person not in a dysfunctional relationship, I could see where everything was going wrong; how it was all a little too much and a little bit out of the bounds of normal or healthy. I could see it, and yet what I felt was so different.
Because Shannon Parker has created this set of circumstances where you believe everything that is happening; where you see what it’s like to be in that relationship from the outside, and at the same time, you can completely understand why everything that happens in that relationship is happening. From the “I need you and only you” to “I’ve only ever felt this way when I’m with you” and “You affect me more that I could say. I don’t deserve you”, you see it all slowly unfold before your eyes. How everything seems so reasonable, and then you look up and realise that her boyfriend just asked her to never talk to her best friend again, and Shannon Parker had YOU believing it!
And I swear, being someone who has always believed that friends are more important than boys, the fact that I could understand scared me. And that is just a testament to how great this book is.
But then, all of that I expected, on some level. What I didn’t expect the book to give me, however, was the good and the bad of the relationship. How everything was perfect, how Alec was the sweetest guy in the world that any girl would be lucky to have, how he made her meals and gave her these tiny gifts oh-so-often. It was perfect, and it wasn’t. And for the first time ever, I feel like I can understand a bit of what really goes on in the relationship you’re always warning your best friend against. The world isn’t a black and white place, but shades of grey, and The Girl Who Fell only reaffirmed that!
I SALUTE YOU, SHANNON PARKER!
And I’ve gone rambling almost five hundred words without once mentioning my two new favourite secondary characters – Gregg and Lizzie! That chemistry was brilliant, that friendship perfect – just like everything about this book!
POINTS FOR: Gregg, Lizzie, Zephyr (the character and the name!), Alec, Finn (the CUTEST dog in the world), ice hockey, family, weddings, parks, picnics, accurate descriptions of what it’s like to be a high school senior and DID I SAY GREGG?!
POINTS AGAINST: NOTHING! Nothing at all. Seriously.
Now go. Go READ THE BOOK. GO.
• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
