FALLING INTO PLACE BY AMY ZHANG

FALLING INTO PLACE
BY AMY ZHANG
Category: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary
Published September 9th 2014 by Greenwillow Books
Format Acquired: Signed Paperback
Source: Publisher (Thank you so much, HC International!)
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes and Noble / The Book Depository / Kobo / National Book Store / Fully Booked
2015 Reading Challenge: A book that made you cry

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? Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? Vividly told by an unexpected and surprising narrator, this heartbreaking and 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? Amy Zhang’s haunting and universal story will appeal to fans of Lauren Oliver, Gayle Forman, and Jay Asher.

“She would be an object in motion that would stay in motion, even if it meant flattening everything in her path.” 

When I started reading Falling Into Place last week, I put it down after three chapters. Why? Because I already loved it and I don't want it to end just yet. I know I can devour the book in one sitting, but I didn't want to. Those first three chapters made me fall inlove with Amy Zhang's writing and it feels great to finally have a book like this again. I read one chapter per day for one week and when weekend finally came over, I couldn't help myself but read it continuously. I actually didn't sleep just to finish it!

“She was tired. Gravity pulled at her more aggressively than usual. When she closed her eyes, she could feel it, dragging her deeper, deeper. I would have pulled her back. I would have saved her from falling, but she didn’t see my hand.” 

Liz, being one of the most popular in her school (and she probably didn't know that, but everyone knows who Liz Emerson is), have experiences in her life, experiences that pushed her to become suicidal. Her family, friends, (ex)boyfriend, and Liam. It's like they know her, but they don't know who she is. Not until the accident, where everybody suddenly had flashbacks on the moments of their lives that involves Liz Emerson. Zhang was able to capture her characters' moments of despair, honesty, and realizations.

“But there was something terrifying taking over her thoughts, and it wouldn't leave. Out of seven billion sharing the planet with her, not one of them knew what was going through her head. Not one of them knew that she was lost. Not one of them asked.” 

Liz is not really a likeable character, but I managed to get through her feelings (Every character's feelings in this book, actually). She's a lost girl, trying to find her way out of the darkness before it completely swallows her. But she couldn't find a way out, so she let the darkness take her. I felt her sadness, her guilt, her depression, her anger, her struggles -- I felt all of her. Zhang's writing is the kind I've been wanting to have all my life, the way she can connect her characters to her readers. I love the alternating perspectives, the snapshots, especially this mysterious narrator that made me feel like I am him/her.  

“Because Liz Emerson held so much darkness within her that closing her eyes didn't make much of a difference at all.” 

Yes, that's how much I loved Falling Into Place. It made me fall right into Liz' place. This, my friends, is one of the most heartbreaking stories I've read so far. I honestly loved it way much better than If I Stay. My review cannot justify how this book moved me and made me cry during the wee hours of the morning. So please, my dear bookish friends, read this. 

“She wanted to go back. She wanted to be a little girl again, the one who thought getting high meant being pushed on the swing and pain was falling off her bike.”

5 out of 5 Pandas