Review: Characterization was spot on, but plot wasn't dark enough
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 16, 2014
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.When We Fall isn’t exactly terrifying. In fact, it’s anything but terrifying. It’s dark though, with emotional themes that rock main character, thirteen-year-old Ben, to his core. After his best friend dies, Ben’s world is turned upside down. There’s no one left to help him make the films he and his best buddy always dreamed of. Then another death occurs, this time that of his nemesis, a boy who always bullied him. Meanwhile, Ben strikes up an unusual friendship with the seventeen-year-old girl next door, Aubrey Rose.The characterization of thirteen-year-old Ben was spot on. He acts and behaves like a typical boy his age. The severity of the events that happened is also described well, and the reader can genuinely relate to Ben’s pain over losing his friend. The tone is dark, unsettling, and one senses right away something bad is about to happen.For a dark fiction novella, the plot wasn’t all that dark though. The writing was all right, but I missed the creepy factor in this book.All in all, an okay read, but I would’ve preferred had the story been a bit darker and scarier.