⭐️⭐️⭐️
Pros: Nelson doesn’t shy away from the rough parts of life but through it all there’s always light and hope/The ending of Part 3 was quite a shocker/When all the pieces began fitting together it definitely improved the story.
Cons: Miles and his obsession with sex, it got rather obnoxious/The lineage of the Falls was a necessary part of the story but I do wish people would just be honest with one another/Except for Cassidy, every other character bothered me for different reasons.
Full Review:
The Fall family has not had an easy time of things. Theo Fall, father to Wynton, Miles and Dizzy and husband to Bernadette just up and disappeared 12 years ago with no word or explanation. Bernadette's tried her best to hold her family together but, one person can only do so much.
Wynton, the oldest, is a musical prodigy but he stumbles through life, creating havoc and trouble wherever he goes. Miles, is the "perfect" one, excelling in sports, academics, you name it, but deep down, he's struggling to accept himself. And then there's Dizzy. She's just as odd as her name and lately, her oddness has started to isolate her from her peers.
Bernadette tries to get by and raise her children as best she can. And Clive, Theo's brother, tries to help but unfortunately his alocholism eventually drives a rift between them all and Bernadette no longer wants him around. Things aren't great in the Fall family but they're all just trying their best.
When Dizzy runs off school grounds after a humiliating incident in gym class, she's wandering the streets, unsure of where to go or what to do. When she stumbles into the path of an oncoming car, she's pushed out of the road by a rainbow haired girl. Dizzy is convinced that the rainbow haired girl is an Angel. It's not until tragedy strikes and Wynton is hit by a car and rendered comatose, that others start to wonder about Dizzy's Angel.
Dizzy's rainbow haired savior is actually a girl named Cassidy and we learn her story after she saves Wynton's life by performing CPR when he's struck by the car. She tells him of her past, growing up with her mother, living in an RV and traveling from place to place in search of "The Town." It's a place that her mother is convinced they'll know when they get there. And though Cassidy adores her mother, she learns over the years that, no one is perfect. In a way, this whole story was a way of showing that no one is perfect, even when we think they are.
Though the Fall family's lineage was important, there were times when it was too far fetched and it took away from the narrative happening in the present. I wanted to focus on what was happening to the current Fall family, not Alsonso or Maria. Eventually all the pieces of the different stories did line up and the puzzle came together but to be honest, it took far too long. It wasn't until the mind-blowing conclusion of Part 3 that I started to actually be interested in the book again.
This wasn't my favorite of Nelson's books. To be honest, all of the characters, except for Cassidy, bothered me. I liked Cassidy for her intelligence, devotion and deep willingness to understand and to love but everyone else was a train wreck. And I think that was Nelson's point. That we are all perfectly imperfect and just doing our best to get through our lives. It had its good parts but overall, this just didn't impress me as much as Nelson's other novels.
Ended here.
Dizzy - Youngest Fell child. Tween and obsessed with romance novels, the meaning of existence and just wanting all her loved ones to understand her and love one another. When she runs off from school after being humiliated in class, she’s rescued from being run over by a rainbow haired girl, but no one else sees her.
Miles - Middle chills. Perfect Miles. Athletic, smart, determined to be everything that his brother Wynton is not. He, of course, secretly struggles with the fact that he’s gay. He runs into the Angel when he comes across her sleeping in her truck.
Wynton - Oldest Fell Child. A musical prodigy but also an alcoholic, stealing, drug addict. Why, I don’t know. He’s unrepentant and I really don’t like him. He is rescued by the Angel after a hit and run. This is after the best gig of his life, but he’s too drunk/high to meet with the guy he’s supposed to meet. When he hooks up with a girl and her boyfriend beats the shit out of him. He’s stumbling home only to run into Cassidy. She helps him out of the road and they share a moment. He’s then run down by a car and Cassidy puts in the call to 911 and saves his life.
Part 2
She then sneaks into his hospital room every night and tells him her life story and the 4 great betrayals that happened to her.
Her mother got pregnant after a one night stand. She decides to be free and raise Cassidy on the road. They travel through California, searching for the elusive “town” that her mother claims will be perfect and they’ll know it when they find it. Cassidy loves her mother but struggles when her mother gos to “the silent world.” Basically catatonically depressed. It turns out that Marigolds mother killed herself and ber father basically drank himself to death. The fact that Marigold never told Cassidy this, is the first betrayal.
Things seem to take a better turn when they meet a man named Dave at a rig seip. Things are tense at first and Cassidy hates him but after a month, she can’t imagine life without him. He proposes marriage to Marigold but he’s gone the next morning.
After Marigold eventually pulls herself out of her depression they set off on the road to find him. They track down Paradise Springs, after searching for the soufflé restaurant he described (which is also Wyntons mother’s restaurant.)
Meanwhile, Dizzy, Miles and their mother are sitting around Wyntons hospital bed hoping he’ll wake from his coma. One hand is crushed, the other arm broken, one leg broken. He’s in extremely rough shape and will probably never play music again.
It’s eventually revealed that Miles has been skipping school, when the Dean Cole’s to the hospital. Dizzy blames herself for Wyntons condition, since if she hadn’t let him back in the house after his mother kicked him out, he wouldn’t have stolen Miles pills and been in the state he was in when hit by the car.
When a new chef that works with the mother filmes Dizzy in the chapel, he decides to tell get off how he came to Paradise, hitching a ride with a chatty girl in an orange pickup (Cassidy).
Part 3
Cassidy explains the curse that’s on the Fall family, starting all the way back with Alonso Fall.
There’s a whole Cain and Abel thing going on with Alonso and Hector his adopted brother of a prostitute. His mother was supposed to marry a poet but they threw him on a ship and kept him bound in cargo until he starved. Jeez.
Alonso meets a boy and falls in love. Very Miles.
Meanwhile Miles meets Felix, the giant chef and is astonished to find out that he’s bi, yay, and that he drove to Paradise Springs with Cassidy. So, Felix, Miles and Sandro the dog hop into a car and go in search of her. It’s also revealed that Miles was the one who totaled their mother’s truck and Wynton took the blame.
Meanwhile, Cassidy explains that once they get to Paradise Springs and find Dave, he is rich and married with Children. His run in with them was like a dream. He had gone back to Paradise to break it off with his wife but she asked him to stay for a few a days. Tha he owed them that and he did. But more days passed and he began to wonder if if time with Cassidy and Marigold really was a dream.
Cassidy runs off, betrayed, bewildered and heartbroken. This is the second betrayal. She runs into a meadow where she finds Wynton. He plays his violin for her and they flirt for a bit. He then takes her into town and gets her one of his mother's souffles, saying that if she eats it, the first person she looks at, she'll fall in love with. So, she of course, takes a bite and looks at Wynton. Yay.
Meanwhile, Miles is interrupted by a hook-up by a new chef from his mother's restaurant, Felix. He's loud and flamboyant and Miles is instantly in love. Turns out, Felix is bi and that he came to Paradise Springs after running away from home and breaking up with his girlfriend. When Miles finds out that he drove to Paradise Springs with Cassidy and knows where she lives, they go off on a road trip to find her. And Miles is obnoxiously obsessed with Felix, constantly thinking about sex, sex, sex. It's really getting rather repetetive and obnoxious. Also, Dizzy has stowed away on their road trip. The mother really isn't very observant.
Meanwhile, the story of the Fell ancestors continues. Alonso sails to San Francisco with his friend Maria, having left the love of his life, Sebastian at home, who says he can't leave his sisters. So he and Maria go to California, to San Francisco, to start a new life together.
Felix and Miles run out of gas on their road trip to find Cassidy and of course, Dizzys snuck away with them. They camp out in the truck and Miles just keeps obsessing over Felix. Like kid, shut up, you’re obnoxious.
As they’re driving and Miles learns more about his ancestor, it starts to make more sense. The kissing ghosts that Dizzy sees are her grandfather and his lover. The Cain Abel brother thing happens down the line until we get to Theo and Clive, Theo is Dizzy/Miles/Wuntons father and Clive their uncle.
Miles is inspired by the story and finds out as gay to Dizzy. He and Felix seemed to bond. But as Wynton hears the story and realizes he’s Hector, the bad brother, he thinks too hard and his heart stops. Well, that’s not good.
Miles struggles himself with the thought of his ancestors. Even if it wasn’t real, which be doubted, cause giants and floating? Come on now…but he wonders what kind of family has a curse? Like, he should’ve been a better brother. He was at fault too.
Just when the book was starting to get a bit too whimsical Nelson punched me in the face with the big reveal at the end of Part 3. Dude, Theo Fall. Living with Cassidy…whoa.
Dizzy is overjoyed. Thinking it’s fate. Miles is livid, saying he’s been here this whole time and nothing. Man comes out and calls him Dexter. Mans name is Niles. Calls Lost Dad Dexter. Dizzy explains who he is matter of factly. Interesting.
Part Four - Cassidy tells Wynt about the third betrayal. After Dave’s manipulation and subsequent abandonment, her mother falls into a deep depression and basically just gives up. Shes drunk and high all the time and Cassidy does what she can to take care of her. She’s basically molested at a party and feels great shame. When she finally tells her mother, it’s during a screaming match and the next week, Marigold do’s what she can to spend time with Cassidy and make things better.
Until the morning Cassidy awakes, alike and there’s a note. Her mothers left her, and she’s left her with her real father. Who just happens to be Theo Fall. She met him at a music festival and he didn’t even know Cassidy existed until about a month ago when Cassidy’s mother emailed him. She immediately likes him, though she wishes she didn’t and she starts to build a life with him.
Meanwhile we learn from Bernadette, how she met Theo and Clive Fall. She loves them both, like brothers. And though there’s supposed to be a rift between them thanks to the family curse, Clive and Theo love each other, even though their Father is an evil man and makes them fight one another. They sell their wine at Bernadette’s parents bakery that they named after Bernadette’s deceased brother, Christophe. I have a feeling Bernadette and Theo falling in love might be what drives a rift between the brothers.
When Miles and Dizzy tell their Father heat he has to come back with them to wake Wynt from his coma, he sadly refuses, saying he can’t go back to Paradise. And though Dizzy is ecstatic at the fact that Cassidy is her sister now instead of an angel she’s crushed that her father won’t join them and Miles is understandably furious. They head back to Paradise, with Theos trumpet in hand At least. He says that Clive will be able to help. I don’t know about that though.
Miles goes back and talks to his father who agrees to go to the hospital. We find out through Bernadette’s unsent notes that she hooked up with Clive, even when she was married to Theo. Fucking idiot. And Clive is Wyntons father which makes Cassidy and he’s romance not creepy.
The day on the swings when Miles and Wynton were young, they ran home and Wynton saw Clive and his mom having sex. Theo slips into the coma and dies. Or so he thought. And Wynton overhears his mom telling Clive that Theo took her journal and he knows everything. Fucking morons.
Of course, once Miles goes back and loses his shit on Theo, Theo agrees to come to the hospital. Everything's wrapped up in a nice, shiny, happy, rainbow bow but there was no explanation as to why Theo died of pneumonia and then magically came back to life. That part was completely just, left out. This wasn't my favorite of Nelson's works. Honestly, though the ending was happy, fuzzy warm feelings, overall, it was a slog and I'm glad to be done with it.
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