Falling Fast by Sophie McKensie

Falling Fast by Sophie McKensie

TIME TO READ: 3 Days
PAGES: 247

SYNOPSIS:
When River auditions for a part in an inter school performance of Romeo and Juliet, she finds herself smitten by Flynn, the boy playing Romeo. But Flynn comes from a damaged family—is he even capable of giving River what she wants? The path of true love never did run smooth . . .

This is real life, not a rehearsal...

MY REVIEW:

CHARACTERS: 4/5
River is the protagonist of the book. I really liked her character, although she was sometimes overly cliche. She was a realistic and vivid character that you grow attached to over the course of the novel. I sometimes felt like she was a clingy overly attached girlfriend towards Flynn. She was also selfish at times but I enjoyed her character.
Flynn- oh so handsome and oh so broody. Flynn was so mysterious in the beginning and you fell in love with him before you even got to know him. He had a bad childhood growing up, he had an abusive alcoholic father who put his mother in hospital and frightened all his siblings. With the Father gone now, we see Flynn as the "Man" of his house, bringing in as much income as possible and being very protective of his family, especially his sister. Money is a very sensitive subject for him as his family is very poor. I loved his relationship with River, although I think she can be selfish at times, I love them together!
I also enjoyed Rivers friends' characters, they were fun to read about and very entertaining.

PLOT: 3 /5
The plot of this book was good, if a little cliche. The romeo and Juliet style romance has been done to death, or so I thought prior to reading this novel. Sophie McKensie shows us her take on a modern day romance between two teenagers from very different backgrounds. I enjoyed the romance side of the book and I was desperate to read more & more about Flynn and Rivers romance. The plot was very much character and romance driven, which I felt I enjoyed. This book's plot was very different from McKensie's other books, where the genre is typically YA thriller . This was a fresh and enjoyable summer read.

WRITING STYLE: 4/5
As soon as I seen Sophie McKensie's name on this I immediately checked it out of my local library. I picked this book up because of the Author and I had also heard positive things about it in magazines and on Goodreads. The writing style of the book was good and added to my overall enjoyment of the novel. The dialogue between the characters really helped me to get to know the characters on a personal level . The descriptions and overall writing style of the book was good, especially for McKensie's first contemporary novel- which must be a huge change from her other books. Two things that I disliked about this novel was that 1) some aspects of the book were overly cliche. I was sometimes suppressing an eye roll at Rivers drama queen behaviour. I soon learned to ignore it over the course of the book. I understand that that behaviour is apart of Rivers character but I find it slightly irritating. 2) The ending....It just ended so abruptly without much resolution, I'm sure this is to lead onto a sequel but I just did not enjoy that.

OVERALL RATING: 11 / 15
A four star book
* * * *
(Definitely a read worthy book, A really enjoyable light, contemporary read.)