Falling into Place is the story of Liz Emerson. Liz has just driven her car off an icy road and tumbled down a cliff. Everyone believes it was accidental. It wasn't. Liz planned her suicide in such a way that no one would know that she actually wanted to die. Even her best friends didn't know how unhappy she was, how much she loathed herself and her life. Liz is the pinnacle of popular at her high school. She is THE beautiful, mean girl. Liz has left immeasurable ruined reputations, relationships and lives in her wake.
Molly is driving back, but she doesn't know from where. And she doesn't know to where. All she knows is that she should be in school, but she's in her car instead. Suddenly she sees a motorcycle speeding up behind her. Somehow she knows that he is coming for her. She passes through the intersection as the light turns red. The motorcycle keeps coming; it runs the red light. A truck enters the intersection, catching the back tire of the motorcycle, sending is spinning. The rider flies through the air, over Molly's car and lands on the asphalt right in front of her.
Morgan measures her likeability by how many Twitter followers she has. Her goal is to reach 5000 and she is getting very close. If she has 5000 followers, she has to be likeable, right? Even if she doesn't have any real life friends, even if the father she's never known didn't like her enough to stick around and help raise her. She is currently tweeting about things she thought were true.
Mysti Murphy is not having a good 7th grade year. Her only friend, Anibal Gomez, has developed a crush on a Cheer Squad girl and has decided to change his image in an effort to be noticed. Part of Anibal's "social experiment" is to develop a hipster persona that he thinks his new crush will admire. To see if his experiment works, he needs to ditch Mysti. Anibal decides that he and Mysti can talk and text in the evenings and on weekends, but they must have NO contact during school. Mysti has no other friends, so she now sits alone at the Loser Island in the cafeteria at lunchtime.
What a heart wrenching, yet inspiring, read this was! I listened to the audio book and couldn't tear myself away. It's been a long time since I found myself so immersed in a story, or since I have read a story so incredibly tragic and yet, at the same time so hopeful.
Finn Easton is like any other epileptic teenage boy with a famous author for a father who had a horse fall on him, break his back and kill his mother. Which is to say that Finn Easton is like no one you have ever met. The eerie resemblance between himself and the main character of his father’s best-selling book, has left Finn wondering if he is even real. Measuring time by the miles traveled by earth’s rotation, Finn has a different way of looking at things than anyone around him.
It's 1962 and the world is watching as President Kennedy and Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev face off. Tensions are rising day by day, the Cuban Missile Crisis is reaching its peak. Scott's father has built an underground bomb shelter and the family is the brunt of the neighbor's jokes. That is until the air raid sirens go off and suddenly only Scott's family has somewhere safe to go. Just as Scott's dad is about to close and lock the heavy steel door, some of the neighbors grab it and try to open it back up; they are desperate to survive.
I am generous with 4 star ratings, but I don't give out a lot of 5 stars; I reserve those for the most exceptional books. This was an exceptional book!
Another beautiful, intelligent, sensitive teenager has killed her self. The media blames the bullies at Emma Putnam's new school that refused to accept her, that kept her on the fringe. The used words like slut and whore, they left notes and signs on her locker, they found her on social media...they drove her to suicide.
Josh Bell, known as Filthy McNasty to those on the court, is one of top two players on his middle school basketball team. The other player is his twin brother, Jordan. The two are expected to become big stars as their father was an amazing basketball player before he retired, known to his fans as Da Man!
Filthy and Jordan are ready for an epic year on their team, taking them all the way to playoffs, when things are complicated by a new girl, who captures Jordan's eye and their father's heart problems.
