eARC Review: Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang

Title: Falling Into Place
Author: Amy Zhang
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Publication date: September 9th, 2014
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
*ARC was provided by the publisher*

Synopsis:
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.

I devoured this book. I read it in its entirety in one sitting, and was left in awe at four in the morning. It is one of the most beautiful, effortless and emotional books I've read for sure. I was so incapable of forming coherent thoughts that I completely put off writing this review, and was so busy with school until today, the official release day. Ooops. But even just thinking about right now is beyond words. I don't even know if I can properly explain my reasons for loving this book at all. 

One of the most beautiful things about this book is the unique way in which it is told. The technique the author has utilised is quite rare. As you first begin reading the book it is hard to identify exactly who the narrator is, we only know that they are outside of the story and thus we are able to see into the lives of all the characters involved. Not only were we able to experience the past Liz and what she was going through, but also the lives of everyone around her and just how much she had influenced them. The story is also revealed through Liz's friends Julia and Kennie's perspectives as well as her classmate, Liam.

Liz is admittedly not the most loveable character, and I don't think she's supposed to be, but she had many redeeming qualities in her. Especially in the first half of the novel you see just how horrible she'd been to others, and even herself. But Liz's struggle is sad, and in a way, sweet. She is a character that readers can empathise with, feel sympathetic toward and also at times, be angry at. I have concluded that Liz and I definitely share a love-hate relationship. I hated the way she treated others, I loved how beautifully complex she was as a character. She was so incredibly genuine.

I fell madly in love with the prose of the novel. It was beautiful, effortless, almost poetic. There were sentences of this book that were so darn beautiful, I just wanted to pick the words off of the page and carry them around in my pocket. I was hooked from the first sentence to the very last letter. 

There are quite a number of similarities between Falling Into Place and If I Stay by Gayle Forman (one of my favourites!) but the pacing is probably the biggest one. Similarly to If I Stay, Falling Into Place progresses in a non-linear fashion. It shifts back and forth between points in time, which often is known to make the novel feel jumbled up or nonsensical, but it didn't. 

As mentioned before, I finished this book at four in the morning and I was left puffy-eyed and in awe of it's beauty. It's sad, beautiful and tragic. (WHAT UP TAYLOR SWIFT REFERENCE! Sorry.) Above all it was genuine, and it's realness crushed into a thousand tiny pieces. Every single facet of the story is incredibly wonderful and I love it with every fibre of my being. 

This needs to be the next book you read.

5/5 hearts!