Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
Kindle version review. Deeply layered characters who shift and evolve over the course of the novel as the daughter, Meredith, attempts to re-enter life as a "near abducted" victim. She shares the. Aeration with her mother, Claire, in alternate chapters, revealing the emotional trauma occurring in the family, and even peripheral characters, following the aftermath. I did not relate well to Claire until the last few chapters but understood her to be a very fallible, imperfect, often selfish, woman who did not have the best relationship with Meredith before the incident. I was engaged in the story, especially with how Meredith coped with being the lucky one while Lisa was not.
Loved, loved, loved this book! Perabo writes with an astute honesty that is wonderful and refreshing. The suspense of what exactly is happening and the inner workings of the family members during this time keeps you reading to the just right ending.
Meredith Oliver is a 13-year-old rather non-descript girl. The only moment, when she was put on the spotlight was when her older brother Evan, a baseball prodigy, was severely injured and his nascent career came to an end. One afternoon after school, she passes by a deli when suddenly a gunned man enters and robs the market. Meredith finds herself on the floor together with Lisa Bellow, the most popular girl of her school. Lisa is full of fear and trembling all the time. Then the robber orders Lisa to accompany him. When Meredith wakes up again in hospital, she cannot recall the last minutes and give the police important information to find Lisa. The next weeks become hard, on the one hand, her parents put Meredith into a kind of golden cage, on the other hand, Meredith is adopted by the popular girls due to her fascinating experience and since one place in the group was free now. But Lisa remains missing. And does Meredith really not recall anything of that afternoon?
The novel was advertised as hair-rising and thrilling. This I could not really find in it. Of course, there is some suspense, you want to find out what happened in the deli and how much Meredith remembers. She fantasises about what might happen to Lisa in the robber’s house, at times, I wondered if this really was all fantasy or if she might actually know more than she did. But the crime case was not really in the focus of the novel. Actually, I was wondering while reading, what the novel is essentially about. We have Meredith’s case, her way of coping with the experience, the behaviour of not only her parents but also her classmates after the event. However, a lot of time was spent on narrating her brother’s story, his way of coping with his injury and finding his way back into life. It is not as if I did not like that part, but since the title suggests that Lisa Bellow should somehow be the centre of the narration, I was highly astonished to read that much about the boy.
Susan Perabo did a great job in the way he has her characters develop after the robbery. The parents as well as the girl and Lisa’s mother have different ways of handling it, all different, but all authentic, plausible and differentiated. This is definitely the strongest aspect of the novel. Especially Meredith’s thoughts and fantasies were an interesting insight in her mind and particularly the strange way guilt might work on you. To me, the book is not a thrilling crime story, but a close examination how a family has to come to terms with tragic events.
The novel was advertised as hair-rising and thrilling. This I could not really find in it. Of course, there is some suspense, you want to find out what happened in the deli and how much Meredith remembers. She fantasises about what might happen to Lisa in the robber’s house, at times, I wondered if this really was all fantasy or if she might actually know more than she did. But the crime case was not really in the focus of the novel. Actually, I was wondering while reading, what the novel is essentially about. We have Meredith’s case, her way of coping with the experience, the behaviour of not only her parents but also her classmates after the event. However, a lot of time was spent on narrating her brother’s story, his way of coping with his injury and finding his way back into life. It is not as if I did not like that part, but since the title suggests that Lisa Bellow should somehow be the centre of the narration, I was highly astonished to read that much about the boy.
Susan Perabo did a great job in the way he has her characters develop after the robbery. The parents as well as the girl and Lisa’s mother have different ways of handling it, all different, but all authentic, plausible and differentiated. This is definitely the strongest aspect of the novel. Especially Meredith’s thoughts and fantasies were an interesting insight in her mind and particularly the strange way guilt might work on you. To me, the book is not a thrilling crime story, but a close examination how a family has to come to terms with tragic events.
What a fantastic read! Eighth grader Meredith Oliver witnesses the kidnapping of her classmate, mean girl Lisa Bellow, at the Deli Barn (a local sub shop). The premise, a daytime abduction of a middle school girl, drew me in immediately, but Perabo's book takes on a scope so much wider than that of the typical crime story. This character-driven novel is an exploration of the way we relate to others: our enemies, strangers, and our own family.
As the story progresses, we see Meredith and her family trying to cope with what has happened (and equally important, not happened) to her. Meredith begins to recede into her own thoughts, at times losing touch with reality, as she tries to come to terms with the connection that has been forged between herself and Lisa, her longtime bully. Meanwhile, her family struggles to reconcile post-Deli Barn Meredith with the daughter they thought they knew.
Perabo's superb charactercraft is such that the people we get to know in the novel, especially Meredith's mother, Claire, feel like they could walk right off the page and into real life. I loved Claire and the way she was developed throughout the novel. She is far from a perfect mother or wife, and her thoughts and actions (though they could be off-putting) were honest and relatable, and to me, she is all the more likeable for them.
The Fall of Lisa Bellow kept me turning pages from start to finish, and although the subject matter is serious, Perabo's humorous prose still had me laughing out loud at times. The careful layering of detail (everything from the route Meredith walks to school to the ping! sounds of Evan's baseball routine to the comings and goings of the tolerant and intolerant family cats) made this story and world feel very real to me. This is an exceptionally well written novel, a great family drama and story of healing, and one that will leave you thinking about its characters long after you reach the final page. I would absolutely recommend this book!
As the story progresses, we see Meredith and her family trying to cope with what has happened (and equally important, not happened) to her. Meredith begins to recede into her own thoughts, at times losing touch with reality, as she tries to come to terms with the connection that has been forged between herself and Lisa, her longtime bully. Meanwhile, her family struggles to reconcile post-Deli Barn Meredith with the daughter they thought they knew.
Perabo's superb charactercraft is such that the people we get to know in the novel, especially Meredith's mother, Claire, feel like they could walk right off the page and into real life. I loved Claire and the way she was developed throughout the novel. She is far from a perfect mother or wife, and her thoughts and actions (though they could be off-putting) were honest and relatable, and to me, she is all the more likeable for them.
The Fall of Lisa Bellow kept me turning pages from start to finish, and although the subject matter is serious, Perabo's humorous prose still had me laughing out loud at times. The careful layering of detail (everything from the route Meredith walks to school to the ping! sounds of Evan's baseball routine to the comings and goings of the tolerant and intolerant family cats) made this story and world feel very real to me. This is an exceptionally well written novel, a great family drama and story of healing, and one that will leave you thinking about its characters long after you reach the final page. I would absolutely recommend this book!
The Fall of Lisa Bellow by Susan Perabo is a 2017 Simon & Schuster publication.
This is a poignant and haunting, if not slightly offbeat novel, which examines the aftermath of a robbery and the kidnapping of Lisa Bellow.
Lisa was one of the popular girls in school and could lash out with her poisonous tongue, which Meredith Oliver found herself on the receiving end of on a few occasions. But, Meredith was not going to allow Lisa’s presence in the Deli Barn deter her from getting a root beer after school one afternoon.
Little did Meredith know that her fateful choice would see both her and Lisa lying on the floor with a gun pointed at them during a robbery attempt. Nor could Meredith have foreseen that Lisa would be kidnapped during that robbery while Meredith was left behind.
This shattering event and the effect it has on the entire Oliver family is the focal point of the novel, with special emphasis on Meredith as she tries to cope with what is most assuredly survivor's guilt, mixed with a dash of PTSD.
As if thirteen isn't awkward enough, it's that age when parents are not sure how much freedom to bestow, wishing to hold on to the last vestiges of childhood and innocence, Meredith must now cope with being famous, trying to build mental toughness and desperately, and bravely attempting to deal with her problems alone, without calling attention to her troubling thoughts.
Mark and Claire, Meredith's parents, have only just begun to recover from the shock of having their son, Evan, blinded in one eye after suffering a horrible injury that also altered the course of his future, and are now trying to figure out how to help their daughter cope with a traumatic event, on top of maintaining busy careers and other obligations, which stretches the family to their limits.
Although Mark and Claire handle pressure and stress in different ways, I didn’t feel a strong like or dislike for either one of them, but occasionally felt myself identifying with Claire’s obvious pride in her children, her annoyance with her even keeled husband, the stress she puts on herself and the unapologetic way she expresses her relief that her child is safe. Her inner thoughts, which can be selfish, and maybe a little fiendish, are probably more realistic than some might want to admit.
Mark on the other hand, doesn’t get to voice his inner thoughts, but we learn enough about him from Claire and their dialogue with one another to get an idea of how he feels and copes, although he is a little too perfect sometimes, and I can see why Claire became frustrated with him.
Evan is typical, funny, and I think the trauma his sister suffered pulled him out of a long depression and prompted him to continue doing something he loved even if his prospects have changed. He was good to Meredith in his way, but the dynamic between them changes after the robbery and the hero worship Meredith once extolled on Evan quickly evaporates.
The teenage drama which deals with cliques and popularity is also considered as Meredith, once victimized, suddenly finds herself keeping company with a different crowd.
But, the thing that really sticks with me about this novel, is Meredith’s personal journey and the toll her harrowing experience took on her. Her guilt is palpable and my heart went out to her as she struggled to adjust to a new normal in her life and her attempts to help Lisa’s mother and hopefully find a way to discover who kidnapped her.
Meredith’s voice is filled with anxiety, fear, and lost innocence, but she is also a thoughtful, caring girl, desperate to make things better.
This book doesn’t offer up pat answers and realistically spotlights a family placed in extraordinary circumstances and how they rise to the occasion and how they falter at times. Ultimately, the story is about family, about surviving a tragedy, about bravery in the face of adversity and sticking together, determined to make it through the messiness of life, despite their flaws and missteps.
This is a thought provoking novel, in which the characters will linger around in my mind and heart for a time. Although the story is dark and melancholy, the ending left me with a feeling of hope for Meredith and her family. Although none of them will be the same, and Mark won’t be able to use his ‘reset’ card, the family will forge on and will each be the best they can be and do the best they can with what cards they are dealt.
4 stars
This is a poignant and haunting, if not slightly offbeat novel, which examines the aftermath of a robbery and the kidnapping of Lisa Bellow.
Lisa was one of the popular girls in school and could lash out with her poisonous tongue, which Meredith Oliver found herself on the receiving end of on a few occasions. But, Meredith was not going to allow Lisa’s presence in the Deli Barn deter her from getting a root beer after school one afternoon.
Little did Meredith know that her fateful choice would see both her and Lisa lying on the floor with a gun pointed at them during a robbery attempt. Nor could Meredith have foreseen that Lisa would be kidnapped during that robbery while Meredith was left behind.
This shattering event and the effect it has on the entire Oliver family is the focal point of the novel, with special emphasis on Meredith as she tries to cope with what is most assuredly survivor's guilt, mixed with a dash of PTSD.
As if thirteen isn't awkward enough, it's that age when parents are not sure how much freedom to bestow, wishing to hold on to the last vestiges of childhood and innocence, Meredith must now cope with being famous, trying to build mental toughness and desperately, and bravely attempting to deal with her problems alone, without calling attention to her troubling thoughts.
Mark and Claire, Meredith's parents, have only just begun to recover from the shock of having their son, Evan, blinded in one eye after suffering a horrible injury that also altered the course of his future, and are now trying to figure out how to help their daughter cope with a traumatic event, on top of maintaining busy careers and other obligations, which stretches the family to their limits.
Although Mark and Claire handle pressure and stress in different ways, I didn’t feel a strong like or dislike for either one of them, but occasionally felt myself identifying with Claire’s obvious pride in her children, her annoyance with her even keeled husband, the stress she puts on herself and the unapologetic way she expresses her relief that her child is safe. Her inner thoughts, which can be selfish, and maybe a little fiendish, are probably more realistic than some might want to admit.
Mark on the other hand, doesn’t get to voice his inner thoughts, but we learn enough about him from Claire and their dialogue with one another to get an idea of how he feels and copes, although he is a little too perfect sometimes, and I can see why Claire became frustrated with him.
Evan is typical, funny, and I think the trauma his sister suffered pulled him out of a long depression and prompted him to continue doing something he loved even if his prospects have changed. He was good to Meredith in his way, but the dynamic between them changes after the robbery and the hero worship Meredith once extolled on Evan quickly evaporates.
The teenage drama which deals with cliques and popularity is also considered as Meredith, once victimized, suddenly finds herself keeping company with a different crowd.
But, the thing that really sticks with me about this novel, is Meredith’s personal journey and the toll her harrowing experience took on her. Her guilt is palpable and my heart went out to her as she struggled to adjust to a new normal in her life and her attempts to help Lisa’s mother and hopefully find a way to discover who kidnapped her.
Meredith’s voice is filled with anxiety, fear, and lost innocence, but she is also a thoughtful, caring girl, desperate to make things better.
This book doesn’t offer up pat answers and realistically spotlights a family placed in extraordinary circumstances and how they rise to the occasion and how they falter at times. Ultimately, the story is about family, about surviving a tragedy, about bravery in the face of adversity and sticking together, determined to make it through the messiness of life, despite their flaws and missteps.
This is a thought provoking novel, in which the characters will linger around in my mind and heart for a time. Although the story is dark and melancholy, the ending left me with a feeling of hope for Meredith and her family. Although none of them will be the same, and Mark won’t be able to use his ‘reset’ card, the family will forge on and will each be the best they can be and do the best they can with what cards they are dealt.
4 stars
I'm not sure why I waited so long to read this one. I really enjoyed it. All the characters were so different but combined to make a cohesive group. Tragedy can really mess with people. This story had a little bit of everything when it comes to how people deal with tragedy differently. 4 stars. Thank you, NetGalley for the eARC.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book.
I adored Susan Perabo’s short story collection, Why They Run the Way They Do, so was thrilled to hear her first full length novel was coming out this year. While I still prefer Why They Run the Way They Do, The Fall of Lisa Bellow is a psychologically suspenseful novel that gets to the nasty little heart of things (thank you, Catherine!), a type of story I’m always game for. This story is not about what happened to Lisa Bellow, but about the survivors and survivor’s guilt. It’s about the often ungenerous, but brutally honest thoughts, of those who escaped the worst. And, it’s about the minefield of life as a middle school girl. Perabo’s biting portrayal of middle school made me alternately chuckle and cringe…just like actual middle school.
"Lisa looked at her. There was the look. This was why everyone hated her. This was why middle school girls had stomachaches when they woke up in the morning. This was why girls were afraid to read the next text, or turn the corner into the cafeteria. This was why Jules could think, why they all could think, all the girls who were not her friends, why they could all secretly think: Good riddance."
My major gripe lies with the publisher’s blurb, which calls The Fall of Lisa Bellow “gripping” and “suspenseful,” leading readers to expect a page turner. The suspense here is the emotional type rather than “what happens next” type, and readers going in expecting the latter will likely be disappointed. I’d call it more of a coming of age novel with a crime in the background than a page turning mystery.
For more reviews, visit my blog: https://www.sarahsbookshelves.com
I adored Susan Perabo’s short story collection, Why They Run the Way They Do, so was thrilled to hear her first full length novel was coming out this year. While I still prefer Why They Run the Way They Do, The Fall of Lisa Bellow is a psychologically suspenseful novel that gets to the nasty little heart of things (thank you, Catherine!), a type of story I’m always game for. This story is not about what happened to Lisa Bellow, but about the survivors and survivor’s guilt. It’s about the often ungenerous, but brutally honest thoughts, of those who escaped the worst. And, it’s about the minefield of life as a middle school girl. Perabo’s biting portrayal of middle school made me alternately chuckle and cringe…just like actual middle school.
"Lisa looked at her. There was the look. This was why everyone hated her. This was why middle school girls had stomachaches when they woke up in the morning. This was why girls were afraid to read the next text, or turn the corner into the cafeteria. This was why Jules could think, why they all could think, all the girls who were not her friends, why they could all secretly think: Good riddance."
My major gripe lies with the publisher’s blurb, which calls The Fall of Lisa Bellow “gripping” and “suspenseful,” leading readers to expect a page turner. The suspense here is the emotional type rather than “what happens next” type, and readers going in expecting the latter will likely be disappointed. I’d call it more of a coming of age novel with a crime in the background than a page turning mystery.
For more reviews, visit my blog: https://www.sarahsbookshelves.com
Lisa Bellow & Meredith Oliver are not best of friends, they are schoolmates whose lockers are next to each others. Lisa Bellow is introduced as a mean person who is good at bullying other kids.
A masked man with a gun enters a sandwich shop in broad daylight, and Meredith Oliver suddenly finds herself ordered to the dirty floor,Meredith comes face to face with Lisa Bellow, the most popular girl in her eighth grade class. In a span of few minutes the gunman orders Lisa to follow him and then the story spirals around the consequences to Meredith's mind thinking about Lisa's fate.
As Meredith is going through the turmoil of the consequences, her mom Claire is going through her own suffering between the injured son (Meredith's brother) and Meredith's helplessness!
What I liked - Meredith's character was well thought, but the rest of them could have been improvised better!
Her brother who gets injured in the eye and cannot play baseball was annoying, and the father was even worse though their roles are not as much as her mom and Lisa's mom's in the book.
What I didnt understand - why Meredith suddenly felt close to Lisa though she was ignored by Lisa & her friends!
also is there a 2nd book coming out as I felt the ending was very abrupt with unanswered questions - what happened after the abduction to Lisa???
A masked man with a gun enters a sandwich shop in broad daylight, and Meredith Oliver suddenly finds herself ordered to the dirty floor,Meredith comes face to face with Lisa Bellow, the most popular girl in her eighth grade class. In a span of few minutes the gunman orders Lisa to follow him and then the story spirals around the consequences to Meredith's mind thinking about Lisa's fate.
As Meredith is going through the turmoil of the consequences, her mom Claire is going through her own suffering between the injured son (Meredith's brother) and Meredith's helplessness!
What I liked - Meredith's character was well thought, but the rest of them could have been improvised better!
Her brother who gets injured in the eye and cannot play baseball was annoying, and the father was even worse though their roles are not as much as her mom and Lisa's mom's in the book.
What I didnt understand - why Meredith suddenly felt close to Lisa though she was ignored by Lisa & her friends!
also is there a 2nd book coming out as I felt the ending was very abrupt with unanswered questions - what happened after the abduction to Lisa???
The whole thing about not knowing what happened and keep guessing is like living on the edge all the time. That is what I felt when I read “The Fall of Lisa Bellow”.
When Meredith finds herself as a sole witness for kidnapping of her class mate Lisa Bellow, she goes through an emotional trauma. Even though she hated Lisa, as she was so popular made fun of others (also Meredith) now and then, Meredith feels guilty of not able to saving her. There are different kind of emotions that Meredith feels due course of time like she feels that she was left out by the kidnapper because she was fat, sometimes she likes to be with Lisa’s snobby friends, sometimes she likes Lisa’s mother, it’s about whole range of emotions from Meredith that makes this book.
Also one more dominant protagonist is Meredith’s mother, Claire who is pictured as overreacted, almost all the time and freaking out about her kids protection. I just wanted to tell her “Calm down, please”.
Well, I think I have been reading this kind of books continuously where end is kind of abrupt and left hanging, like “In the Woods by Tana French” or “Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller” or “Idaho by Emily Ruskovich”. Overall, definitely Susan Perabo’s narration is too good. I liked the story but didn’t love it much, though I have read this with great expectation and it didn’t reach up to my mark of expectation.
ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!
My english professor gets sent free review copies of books from Simon & Schuster and I was given an arc of this to take off his hands back in February. Haven't finished it yet but it's certainly been an interesting perspective so far to tell the story from the POV of the girl not kidnapped.
***This review and more can be found at Love at First Write***
UPDATE:
My adventure with Meredith, her mom, and the Lisa of Meredith’s imagination has come to a close and I’m still not quite sure what I think. It was very cool to read a book without any action in it. By that I mean the baseball injury happened before the events of the story and the kidnapping/robbery were told by the girl who wasn’t kidnapped. Of course there was drama in the wake of this tragedy, but the ‘action’ of being kidnapped, of being locked in the bathroom, were all the imagination of Meredith the girl who survived. It was more of a psychologically cool book with Meredith’s thoughts, her interactions with the rest of the eight grade class, Lisa’s lonely mother, and the morbid thoughts of Meredith’s mom.
One thing I wasn’t a fan of was the incessant, unnecessary slut shaming coming from all perspectives. I can maybe understand it coming from the ignorant perspective of an eighth-grader, but from her mother too? Obviously people aren’t perfect and characters should be flawed, but this was problematic to the point of being extremely uncomfortable to read. I’m already reading about a girl getting kidnapped and presumably raped, that’s the sort of uncomfortableness I signed up for with picking up this novel. The loneliness of Lisa’s mother only cranked up the uncomfortable vibes form this book. The unnecessary slut shaming from a mother who should know better was going too far for me and that alone took away a star.
Claire (Meredith’s mother) was also incredibly morbid and pessimistic throughout the whole book. I get not being smiley and cheerful, but I really can’t understand her mental state of her children being gone and giving up on them when they are still living in her house and are clearly struggling. That’s when families support each other, like with the husband trying to help the son get back into baseball after his surgeries. Clearly the kid won’t be getting any athletic scholarships, but if he wants to try to play baseball again with his buddies, for a club, or for the high school team again, let him try and discover failure on his own if it comes down to that. She was also super judgmental about Meredith’s choice of friends which I thought was weird?
One thing I really enjoyed was how the novel ended. Meredith brought a sort of finality to it, but also one of starting over- without Lisa. I just assumed that the story was going to go through how horrible the experience was and then last minute Lisa would be found (dead or alive but I assumed alive). Instead we got this incredible realistic, sad but realistic, ending where Lisa stays missing. She disappears from the news and she will probably never be found. The book discusses how the miracles are always the ones talked about, the girls found years after everyone had given up hope. It was eye-opening to be given a story without that hope and acknowledging that grief and movement towards closer was also ok.
All in all this book had two things I found largely problematic, as delineated above, but it also gave me a new perspective and was pretty well-written. If the slut-shaming and problematic parenting don’t bother you then I would definitely recommend this book!
***This review and more can be found at Love at First Write***
UPDATE:
My adventure with Meredith, her mom, and the Lisa of Meredith’s imagination has come to a close and I’m still not quite sure what I think. It was very cool to read a book without any action in it. By that I mean the baseball injury happened before the events of the story and the kidnapping/robbery were told by the girl who wasn’t kidnapped. Of course there was drama in the wake of this tragedy, but the ‘action’ of being kidnapped, of being locked in the bathroom, were all the imagination of Meredith the girl who survived. It was more of a psychologically cool book with Meredith’s thoughts, her interactions with the rest of the eight grade class, Lisa’s lonely mother, and the morbid thoughts of Meredith’s mom.
One thing I wasn’t a fan of was the incessant, unnecessary slut shaming coming from all perspectives. I can maybe understand it coming from the ignorant perspective of an eighth-grader, but from her mother too? Obviously people aren’t perfect and characters should be flawed, but this was problematic to the point of being extremely uncomfortable to read. I’m already reading about a girl getting kidnapped and presumably raped, that’s the sort of uncomfortableness I signed up for with picking up this novel. The loneliness of Lisa’s mother only cranked up the uncomfortable vibes form this book. The unnecessary slut shaming from a mother who should know better was going too far for me and that alone took away a star.
Claire (Meredith’s mother) was also incredibly morbid and pessimistic throughout the whole book. I get not being smiley and cheerful, but I really can’t understand her mental state of her children being gone and giving up on them when they are still living in her house and are clearly struggling. That’s when families support each other, like with the husband trying to help the son get back into baseball after his surgeries. Clearly the kid won’t be getting any athletic scholarships, but if he wants to try to play baseball again with his buddies, for a club, or for the high school team again, let him try and discover failure on his own if it comes down to that. She was also super judgmental about Meredith’s choice of friends which I thought was weird?
One thing I really enjoyed was how the novel ended. Meredith brought a sort of finality to it, but also one of starting over- without Lisa. I just assumed that the story was going to go through how horrible the experience was and then last minute Lisa would be found (dead or alive but I assumed alive). Instead we got this incredible realistic, sad but realistic, ending where Lisa stays missing. She disappears from the news and she will probably never be found. The book discusses how the miracles are always the ones talked about, the girls found years after everyone had given up hope. It was eye-opening to be given a story without that hope and acknowledging that grief and movement towards closer was also ok.
All in all this book had two things I found largely problematic, as delineated above, but it also gave me a new perspective and was pretty well-written. If the slut-shaming and problematic parenting don’t bother you then I would definitely recommend this book!