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A review by doreeny
After We Fall by Emma Kavanagh
3.0
The lives of several people intersect in this novel. Cecilia, who has just left her husband, Tom Allison, is one of the few survivors of a plane crash. She returns to her home with Tom and considers what to do while Tom, a police detective, investigates the murder of Libby, the daughter of Jim Hanover, a retired police superintendent. At the same time, Freya Blake, the daughter of the plane’s pilot who perished in the crash, becomes obsessed with why the plane crashed.
Multiple points of view are used – those of Cecilia, Tom, Jim, and Freya. As a result, there is considerable character development as we learn the background of each narrator. What becomes especially clear is how a character’s past determines behaviour in the present. Tom, for example, refuses to do something because of what his father did in the past and how it impacted his life. Likewise, Freya has difficulty with relationships because of the type of relationship her parents had. Cecilia has issues because of trauma experienced years earlier. The author succeeds in making the characters realistic and believable.
Cecilia is the one character with whom I take exception. What happened to her in the past was certainly traumatic and she should definitely have received counselling after the plane crash, but she is so self-centred and self-pitying. Yet it is not just that she is unlikeable. Given what happened to her, it is unbelievable that she had any relationship with men, much less a sexual one and a marriage. She married Tom and then her past came back to haunt her?
There is a mystery involved as expected in a book tagged as a psychological thriller. Who killed Libby? This mystery most readers will probably solve about half way through. There is more to the book, however. It is its examination of relationships and parenting and their influence that most maintained my interest, though there is, of course, interest in finding out how the stories of the four narrators will converge.
The novel’s style could use some tweaking. There is annoying repetition of certain phrases, for example: “skin still crawling with the thought of Eddie,” “her skin alive, crawling,” “Skin crawling,” and “her skin crawling with impatience.” The smell of cinnamon is present everywhere: “The kitchen smelled of sugar and cinnamon” (Jim’s narration), “It smelled of sugar and cinnamon” (Tom’s narration), “a waft of cinnamon” (Freya’s narration), and “The smell of bread baking, cinnamon and honey” (Freya’s narration).
Another stylistic technique that may be disconcerting to the reader is the very abrupt shifts in time. Often it is only the change to the past perfect tense that indicates a flashback; it is the suddenness of these time shifts, sometimes in the middle of a paragraph, that is jarring.
The book examines how people cope when life causes them to stumble and fall. Cecilia literally falls out of the sky, but she fell and lost her way long before the actual plane crash. Tom stumbles through life because of a decision he made concerning Cecilia and their son. Faced with the death of his only daughter, Jim continues to “stand, even though all he wants to do is fall.” Though the novel is bleak at times, there is recognition that “you have to fall before you can begin to climb again.” And a bird may seem “Like it was falling” but may “Not [be] falling then. Flying.”
Despite its stylistic weaknesses, this book is worth reading. It has well-developed characters and thematic depth, showing how actions taken and decisions made by a person affect others in both the present and future. Those actions and decisions may well influence how a person copes after he/she falls.
Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
Multiple points of view are used – those of Cecilia, Tom, Jim, and Freya. As a result, there is considerable character development as we learn the background of each narrator. What becomes especially clear is how a character’s past determines behaviour in the present. Tom, for example, refuses to do something because of what his father did in the past and how it impacted his life. Likewise, Freya has difficulty with relationships because of the type of relationship her parents had. Cecilia has issues because of trauma experienced years earlier. The author succeeds in making the characters realistic and believable.
Cecilia is the one character with whom I take exception. What happened to her in the past was certainly traumatic and she should definitely have received counselling after the plane crash, but she is so self-centred and self-pitying. Yet it is not just that she is unlikeable. Given what happened to her, it is unbelievable that she had any relationship with men, much less a sexual one and a marriage. She married Tom and then her past came back to haunt her?
There is a mystery involved as expected in a book tagged as a psychological thriller. Who killed Libby? This mystery most readers will probably solve about half way through. There is more to the book, however. It is its examination of relationships and parenting and their influence that most maintained my interest, though there is, of course, interest in finding out how the stories of the four narrators will converge.
The novel’s style could use some tweaking. There is annoying repetition of certain phrases, for example: “skin still crawling with the thought of Eddie,” “her skin alive, crawling,” “Skin crawling,” and “her skin crawling with impatience.” The smell of cinnamon is present everywhere: “The kitchen smelled of sugar and cinnamon” (Jim’s narration), “It smelled of sugar and cinnamon” (Tom’s narration), “a waft of cinnamon” (Freya’s narration), and “The smell of bread baking, cinnamon and honey” (Freya’s narration).
Another stylistic technique that may be disconcerting to the reader is the very abrupt shifts in time. Often it is only the change to the past perfect tense that indicates a flashback; it is the suddenness of these time shifts, sometimes in the middle of a paragraph, that is jarring.
The book examines how people cope when life causes them to stumble and fall. Cecilia literally falls out of the sky, but she fell and lost her way long before the actual plane crash. Tom stumbles through life because of a decision he made concerning Cecilia and their son. Faced with the death of his only daughter, Jim continues to “stand, even though all he wants to do is fall.” Though the novel is bleak at times, there is recognition that “you have to fall before you can begin to climb again.” And a bird may seem “Like it was falling” but may “Not [be] falling then. Flying.”
Despite its stylistic weaknesses, this book is worth reading. It has well-developed characters and thematic depth, showing how actions taken and decisions made by a person affect others in both the present and future. Those actions and decisions may well influence how a person copes after he/she falls.
Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).