Falling by Katherine Cobb – a Review

Description:

Sometimes falling for boys is perilous.

Anna wants a boyfriend from her first day of high school, but gets into hot water when she finds herself with two. First she falls for funny, shy Pete. Then heartthrob Alec comes out of nowhere and aggressively pursues her. She must choose one…or lose both. When everything goes south and the unthinkable happens, Anna is left numb and lost.

A second chance to experience true love emerges, and Anna plunges in. But pressures to fit in, combined with her own emotional fragility, lead her down turbulent paths—and increasing non-parent-approved choices.

Boy troubles. Friend fallouts. Unreasonable parents. Heartbreaking betrayals.

Will Anna overcome…or will she freefall into the abyss?

Review:

Falling by Katherine Cobb is an in your face, scathing coming of age story based in the late 1970’s.

Anna Trapani is starting her sophomore year of high school in 1978. What ensues is an explicit, authentic, true to life coming of age story. Anna is beginning her sophomore year with her best friends Katy and Michelle and she is excited and ready for the new experience. We quickly see how Anna’s good looks imbues her, quite easily with boys and in finding her place at school. But she soon learns that choosing the right boy isn’t always the easiest thing.

Anna struggles, as many of us have, with following her own morals/beliefs and giving into the pressure put on you by your peers. Vividly showing us what Anna (and even ourselves) did to just fit in while navigating “girlhood!”

The story wonderfully portrays life as a teen in 1978, complete with the good and bad.

Anna finds romance with Pete. Her first official boyfriend. She quickly finds herself falling for Pete. But she wants more, she just wants him to make a move and kiss her. When that doesn’t happen as quickly as she would like, she finds herself being pursued by senior football player Alec Mays. Alec quickly invades Anna’s life, even though she is still with Pete.

Anna quickly learns the hard lesson (that no girl should ever have to learn) of putting yourself into dangerous situations and consent. Heartbreaking yet graphically honest and raw, I believe it is a lesson all young girls experience to varying degrees, and at some point.

Anna slowly begins to change over time and begins leaving behind her long time friends and replacing them with new ones. Its hard to realize you and your life long friends have changed and that there seems to be no mutual connections anymore! Yet the story continues on. Anna struggles with her parents still treating her like a young child and then dealing with the consequences of her own choices. It ends with Anna and the ultimate price being paid. But who pays that price? Anna, her friends, her parents?

This book has trials and tribulations that many of us faced growing up! Which brought back a flood of memories – both good and bad! It was the ultimate walk down memory lane but without the shiny, watered down cleaned up fairytale version many give us!

I am not going to lie, I enjoyed the beginning of this book quite immensely.

Somewhere are the middle I was like, wow this fifteen year old girl has gone off the rails. Her life is spinning out of control and no one is doing anything to try and help her! And I was annoyed. But the end of the book and the authors afterword spoke volumes.

Somewhere I got lost in the story and forgot that this was the late seventies, early eighties. This coming if age could span generations, in that a girl from the 1970’s could relate to Anna and a girl from 2020 could also! Timeless!

This book delves into the raw yet realistic subjects of peer pressure, consent, sex, drugs, and emotional abuse. There is no sugar coating it this is real life. Great read for adults and mature teens.

Reviewed by Erin

Copy supplied for review