Review: 3.5 Stars for Falling Behind
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 16, 2013
Reese wanted to start her sophomore year by telling her best guy friend, Titus (Ty), that she wants to be more than just best friends.  Until Josh shows up on the first day and sweeps her off of her feet.  When he start changing and becoming more moody, controlling, and demanding she isn't sure how not to be with him.  When he starts taking little pieces of her she knows she can't just walk away.Titus knows that he wants to be more that just best friends with Reese.  There are only two problems; he told their other best friend, Candice, that he wouldn't ask Reese out, and she has a super possessive boyfriend.  Which would probably be okay but he is sure that both girls are in unhealthy relationships.  He just doesn't know how to protect them without seeming like he is being too intrusive.Together Reese and Ty begin to notice that their friend is in serious trouble.  When they alert the adults in their life all she does is pull away farther.  One fateful night changes everything for all three of them.  There is no way that they will make it out the same, or that they will all make it out at all.I have mixed feelings as I write this review.  I really loved the story.  And it was well told.  The ending though...Titus was really quite fabulous, maybe even too good to be true.  I knew from the very beginning of the book that he was deeply in love with Reese.  He wasn't perfect, he was a high school boy, with teenage boy faults.  But he was one of those truly selfless characters who would have done anything for those who he loved.  He was quite adorable.  Maybe a little young for me, being that he was half my age! ;)Reese was pretty broken from the second that I met her.  Not as broken as she would come to be, but enough that she was not operating well.  The farther into the story we got the more she fell apart.  When the worst of the worst happens, there is a good chance that she'll never recover.The plot of this book was pretty great.  It deals with a lot of the dirty underbelly that we generally associate only with adults, but is definitely happening within the confines of high school as well.  I think that it was pretty tastefully addressed, at that.  This could have very easily went into the land of taboo and dirty but it didn't.There were a few things that I would clean up a little bit, but all in all I was pretty happy with the story telling in Falling Behind.  I hated how it ended, there it is.  I hated it!  It was a huge cliffhanger and I really felt like it stopped, not just before the story was over, but before the scene was over.  ARGH!!  I must know what happens!!I would recommend this book to most of my friends, unless they were sensitive to the issues contained within.  If I had daughters I would make them read this so that they would know that bad things can happen to anyone.  As it is, I hope that, when my sons are older (my oldest is 8), I remember this book and have them read it so that they will know what to look for, in order keep their friends safe from this type of treatment.