Review: Tumble & Fall by Alexandra Coutts

Title: Tumble & Fall
Author: Alexandra Coutts
Series: n/a
Book #: 1
Pages: 384
Reading Level: YA
Book Rating: 
Goodreads Rating: 2.84
Published: September 17th, 2013

A novel about the end of days full of surprising beginnings 

The world is living in the shadow of oncoming disaster. An asteroid is set to strike the earth in just one week’s time; catastrophe is unavoidable. The question isn’t how to save the world—the question is, what to do with the time that's left? Against this stark backdrop, three island teens wrestle with intertwining stories of love, friendship and family—all with the ultimate stakes at hand.

Taschima's POV:

Tumble & Fall hooked me with it's premise regarding the end of the world. It seemed so grand, full of wonder and possibility. The cover also left me quite star struck (HA). And while the novel did cover some interesting stories (Caden's being by far my favorite) at the same time I couldn't help but be completely underwhelmed by it.

Just to warn all of you this novel has to do with what happens when people are faced with the "end of times", what they do and who do they cling to. It doesn't deal with what comes after. In the end I was underwhelmed by the three stories told. I wasn't invested in the characters, nor their stories. I felt like I was reading that Holiday movie (example, New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day) in which all the big stars come together to play their parts, only minus what attracts us about these kinds of movies, the stars.

It is the end of times. Yet, everybody seems surprisingly chill with this. An asteroid is headed towards Earth *GASP* and everybody is damn sure they are NOT surviving this one. With this premise we follow the lives of three very different boring teenagers. We must watch them as they try to resolve their family and relationship issues before the world goes bye bye, and we do so in an incredibly slow and unexciting way. To be completely honest I am not completely sure they actually RESOLVED anything. All the teenagers kind of let things go instead of shouting it out into the wind and setting things straight. They all just... gave up (in the most family oriented way possible of course).

Also it felt like I was being shoved this belief that "family ALWAYS ALWAYS must come first". Like, I get it, if the world ends I am going to be with my family because I love them, but that doesn't mean EVERYBODY would be inclined to. What about those who don't have family and make up their own families? I guess variety on the circumstances, family wise, for the characters might have been good. BTW, where are all the government officials? You would think SOMEONE would like to save the world, but if somebody did want to we didn't learn this. The only times you were shown that anything was being done by the government was when they did a TV announcement, and even those were incredibly predictable. I guess the point of the novel is not to save humanity, just to answer the question of "with whom and how would you like to spend your last days on Earth?" If you want a more interesting story I suggest you rent "Looking for a Friend for the End of the World" which is really good and has Steve Carrel + Keira FRICKING Knightley. Enough said.

It just felt like they all were sitting around, waiting to die. There was no human spark, no last good long cry, no human instinct for survival. NO FIRE. And the ONE character who had anything like this completely disappointed me at the very end, choosing to go the cliche route instead of trying to save his own ass. The one story that actually interested me was Coden's, the local dark and twisty kid with serious family issues, but when push came to shove nothing was really put in the line. Same goes for Zan, she is the girl who lost her boyfriend and couldn't get over his death. The other girl was Sienna (yeah, the names are all weird), she also had family issues.

Tumble & Fall fell flat. It didn't made me feel anything, just anxious for the story to end so that I could start the next book. It was written well and everything, it just held no spark. It just didn't interest me. Next please.

*ARC provided via BEA in exchange for an honest review. Quotes subject to change.