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A review by julieb118
Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos
4.0
I LOVED this book. Absolutely LOVED it - just like all of her books, it is just a really happy and satisfying "sigh" when done. I love getting to know her characters, and, in this one, she has great descriptions of the Philippines, the food, the people, the smells. This is interesting, because I don't find that she is nearly that descriptive when her characters are in America (in this book and her two prior) but the moment Penn steps off the plane in Cebu, she becomes very richly descriptive. You can almost smell being there, taste the food, see the flowers. . . It was obviously important to her that her reader be able to picture him/herself in the Philippines. It is just interesting to me that she doesn't write this way "domestically" - perhaps she assumes most of her readers are American and don't need that level of descriptiveness?
There are just a couple things keeping me from giving this book a full 5 stars though I was close to doing so:
1. There is little-to-no development of the charactre of Cat. Past or present, you really don't get to know her, nor understand Will & Penn's devotion to her. I'm not saying she's unlikable - I'm just saying, unlike how she treats most characters in her books (even more minor ones) you really just don't get to know Cat at all. No understanding of why they feel so connected, or why her husband is so devoted to her.
2. A few of her characters and their reactions to things just seem too automatic or contrived. Penn's anger seems bizarre at times, though the way she works through it seems very human. Augusta is not a good character, for me. She does not do a good job, in my opinion, in helping the reader understand why adults just seem to fall for this child - instead she presents her as a fairly precocious, often obnoxious, temper-tantrum prone child. it's fine that she exists in the story and she is certainly part of Penn's story, but I also think the book could have worked quite successfully without her.
Those two negatives thrown out there, I would so very highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read something that feels good and is well written. It left me hoping for a sequel - I'd love to see what happens to all of these characters next - Cat's husband, Will & Penn, Jamie, Will's mom - I wasn't ready to say goodbye and really want to see the next few years with them. I hope she'll write a sequel - or at least related story like she did with her first two.
Give yourself a treat and enjoy this book!
There are just a couple things keeping me from giving this book a full 5 stars though I was close to doing so:
1. There is little-to-no development of the charactre of Cat. Past or present, you really don't get to know her, nor understand Will & Penn's devotion to her. I'm not saying she's unlikable - I'm just saying, unlike how she treats most characters in her books (even more minor ones) you really just don't get to know Cat at all. No understanding of why they feel so connected, or why her husband is so devoted to her.
2. A few of her characters and their reactions to things just seem too automatic or contrived. Penn's anger seems bizarre at times, though the way she works through it seems very human. Augusta is not a good character, for me. She does not do a good job, in my opinion, in helping the reader understand why adults just seem to fall for this child - instead she presents her as a fairly precocious, often obnoxious, temper-tantrum prone child. it's fine that she exists in the story and she is certainly part of Penn's story, but I also think the book could have worked quite successfully without her.
Those two negatives thrown out there, I would so very highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read something that feels good and is well written. It left me hoping for a sequel - I'd love to see what happens to all of these characters next - Cat's husband, Will & Penn, Jamie, Will's mom - I wasn't ready to say goodbye and really want to see the next few years with them. I hope she'll write a sequel - or at least related story like she did with her first two.
Give yourself a treat and enjoy this book!