Great Philosophy

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go..."-Dr. Seuss

Friday, May 6, 2011

Fall by Colin McAdam

This book was sent to me from Romance Junkies for review.

Noel & Julius are roommates at an exclusive boarding school in Canada. They are both diplomat's sons, but very different in temperament and social standings. Noel is the loner and doesn't really have many friends. Julius is the star athlete with lots of friends and a very beautiful girlfriend, Fall (Fallon).
Julius starts to include Noel in things that involve him and his friends and also starts to talk about his meetings with Fall while he and Noel are in bunkbeds at night. He shares some of the relationship problems and things that occur between him and Fall.
Noel starts to obsess about Fall and starts to fall in love with her, not telling Julius that this is what he is feeling. He becomes more inclined to listen and imitate Julius in certain things.
There comes a time after a prank on other boys in the home when Julius is gated for bad behavior, making it impossible for him to have his meetings with Fall. Noel becomes the go-between, passing notes and information to Fall from Julius.
During this time, Fall disappears. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of urgency at first, everyone thinking that maybe her mother took her to Cuba with her. It then becomes known that Fall is nowhere to be found. The police are brought in and we learn some things about her relationship with Julius and also with Noel.
This book is written from the points of view of 3 individuals: Noel, Julius & William, Julius' family driver.
Noel is intelligent and a little strange and you are certainly brought right into his thoughts. Julius is a little harder to read, not much more than thoughts. William is a base player, a little guttural and doesn't seem to have much substance.
I was really quite taken with the writing from Noel's point of view. I was made to feel that he was what we all would consider a "weird" individual. He is the epitome of the strange person that we all think about when we think about "Son of Sam", or a serial killer-type of person. There seems to be justifications for anything that he is feeling at any moment.
The only thing that really bothered me was the ending of the book. There is really no clear cut ending. We never really find out where Fall is or what has really happened to her, or who may have done it to her. Nevertheless, I liked the book and thought that it was a pull into the mind of an individual that I would not want to run into anytime soon. I was very drawn in to the mind of Noel.

colinmcadam.com 

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