Title: Falling Into Place Author: Amy Zhang
Published: September 9, 2014
Genre(s): Realistic/Contemporary
Page Count: 304
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Inertia, force, mass, gravity, velocity, acceleration... cause and effect.
Liz Emerson doesn't understand any of it.
But I do.
I understand how we fall. Where we fall. Why we fall.
I understand her sadness and loneliness and silence, her shattered heart.
It doesn't have to be this way, does it?
It wasn't always this way, was it?
Stay alive, Liz Emerson, stay alive.
On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton's laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road. Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? The nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High's most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force—Liz didn't understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesn't understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect?
I was skeptical about this book. Reviewers compared Falling into Place to Jay Asher and If I Stay, and I know for sure that I don’t like those two things. But reviewers also mentioned a unique, third-party narrator, and that appeals to me on so many levels that I had to give this book a shot. And you know what? It was so worth it. Falling into Place is absolutely phenomenal and forever worth reading.
Yes, there are definite similarities to Gayle Forman—girl in in accident, we see her life through flashbacks, unsure if she’ll live or die. So, no, Amy Zhang’s premise isn’t exactly the most original thing I’ve ever seen. But at the same time, it kind of is. Because Falling into Place is about a girl named Liz who is basically an awful person. She’s a bully, she’s a hypocrite, she’s mean, she’s shallow. If you met Liz on the street, you probably wouldn’t like her, or want to be her friend. Liz just isn’t a good person to be around.
But you know what? Liz doesn’t deserve to die. Liz isn’t so undeserving of this world that she has to remove herself from it. No one, not even Liz, should get to a place where suicide is the only opinion. And that’s what’s so brilliant about Zhang’s writing of Falling into Place. You don’t like Liz, you don’t want to be her friend, but you don’t want her to die or be miserable or feel worthless. You want to root for Liz, to see her successful, to see her look at herself in the mirror and feel that’s she’s a person of value, someone worth investing in. You don’t have to like Liz to want these things; you’d want them for any person. Honestly, it’s truly amazing how this book has tackled Liz’s character—there’s so much depth and nuance and emotion present, even though this book is narrated from an outside observer who has no direct influence or stake in the situation.
More than that, Zhang’s prose is gorgeous. I could, potentially, see how it might come off as pretentious or highbrow, but I actually really loved it. It fit the tone and the pacing of the book very well, and I really don’t think Falling into Place would have been the same if the author had opted to write in the more straightforward style that you tend to see in YA.
It’s hard to explain how perfect this book is, how remarkable it is that Amy Zhang took things I really don’t like (rich white kids, mean girls, flashbacks, lofty prose) and made them into a book that’s so emotionally gripping and flawless. Falling into Place is a YA novel that sets itself apart, and it’s an exceedingly promising debut from a young author. I’m so happy I took a chance on this book, and I’m really, really surprised by how much I loved this.
