A review by victoria_08
Ready to Fall by Marcella Pixley

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This is a really beautiful, gritty story. We are following Max who has just lost his mother to cancer, and now he thinks her brain tumor now lives in his own head. Because of this, he has completely lost focus in school and so his dad decided to transfer him to an arts focused school, in hopes that this new beginning will help Max try. Immediately from the start this book gave me Perks of Being a Wallflower vibes, and it totally came through. The writing style was incredible, I connected so well with it. It felt so true to the character. It wasn't pretentious, it felt like the inner monologue of a hurting, mentally ill teenage boy. But yet, it was still so incredibly beautiful. This whole story was just so well done. I loved the coming of age themes and the friendships within this book. I love the mentorship Max found with his teacher. I love the way the author wrote the tumor, invading every crack and crevice of the pages. It was mentioned all the time, demonstrating how it consumed Max.
Spoilers (kind of) ahead:
The one thing i wasn't super satisfied with was the resolution at the end. The tumor was a product of mental illness, it should have taken more then a brain scan to confince Max that he was fine. The tumor was the last thing connecting Max to his mother, things wouldn't have been resolved so quickly. I also thought the relationship between Max and Fish at the end could have been written a little better. But overall I really loved this book and I think not enough people know about it