Book Review: The Way We Fall

Media Type: Print Book (ARC)
Title: The Way We Fall
Author: Megan Crewe
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Pages: Hardcover; 304
Release Date: January 24, 2011
Source: Big Honcho Media
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Intended Reading Group: Young Adult
Content Screening: Mild Violence
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HDB Rating: 4 Keys to My Heart
Recommended to: Readers who enjoy dystopian reads, but are looking for something a bit different.

Add it on: Goodreads / Shelfari / Amazon / B&N

It starts with an itch you just can’t shake. Then comes a fever and a tickle in your throat. A few days later, you’ll be blabbing your secrets and chatting with strangers like they’re old friends. Three more, and the paranoid hallucinations kick in.

And then you’re dead.

When a deadly virus begins to sweep through sixteen-year-old Kaelyn’s community, the government quarantines her island—no one can leave, and no one can come back.

Those still healthy must fight for dwindling supplies, or lose all chance of survival. As everything familiar comes crashing down, Kaelyn joins forces with a former rival and discovers a new love in the midst of heartbreak. When the virus starts to rob her of friends and family, she clings to the belief that there must be a way to save the people she holds dearest.

Because how will she go on if there isn’t?

First off a praise. Megan Crewe has created a virus that is unlike any I have ever read about before, and therefore a hundred times more terrifying. Thinking back, every virus I’ve ever read about has done ungodly things to people. Skin falling off, limbs atrophying, things that make people run away from you. Crewe’s disease? It causes people to be…friendly, albeit overly so. I thought this was brilliant. What better way to spread a virus than through friendly human contact? For that matter, what scarier way?

Also brilliant in the Way We Fall is the way that the story is told, or so I thought. We see the outbreak through the eyes of Kaelyn, a young girl who lives on the island. However instead of her speaking to us as a reader, she is writing a journal to her friend who left the island to go to school. For me, this was a perfect way to see into the world that Kaelyn was living in. All her fears, all her worries, are penned into that journal beautifully. After all, who better to share the deepest parts of yourself with than a friend?

This book dives into the darkest part of human kind, and what happens when we have to fight to survive. Kaelyn learns early on that there are two types of people when the world fires back at you. There are those who band together, and those who take for themselves. Those who create, and those who destroy. Crewe offers us a look at what happens to a community when disaster hits and, while beautifully executed in the story line, it definitely isn’t always an easy read.

Although The Way We Fall didn’t grab my attention at page one, it was one of those books that was a slow burn for me. By the time that I was a few chapters in, I was scrambling to read more. What Megan Crewe has created here is a new type of dystopian terror. Isolation, greed, survival. It is all played out here in gritty harmony, and it makes The Way We Fall an overall fantastic read. In the world of dystopian fiction, this is something new. I honestly have to say that I loved it.

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was not monetarily compensated for my opinion.