Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Release Date: 1st October 2011
Rating: 2/5
Source: Publisher, thank you!
Publishers Summary:

What if saying hello to an old friend meant saying good-bye to life as you know it?

It’s been six years since Pen Calloway watched her best friends walk out of her life. And through the birth of her daughter, the death of her father, and the vicissitudes of single motherhood, she has never stopped missing them.

Pen, Cat, and Will met on their first day of college and formed what seemed like a magical and lifelong bond, only to see their friendship break apart amid the realities of adulthood. When, after years of silence, Cat—the bewitching, charismatic center of their group—e-mails Pen and Will with an urgent request to meet at their college reunion, they can’t refuse. But instead of a happy reconciliation, what awaits is a collision of past and present that sends Pen and Will, with Pen’s five-year-old daughter and Cat’s hostile husband in tow, on a journey across the world.

Three friends bound together by a shared life threatening experience were closer than ever until, after a series of events they suddenly go their separate ways. For Pen, Cat and Will the six years apart have meant different things to each of them. One lived as a single parent, the other a wife to someone she wasn’t sure she truly loved and the last became a successful author but had more secrets than any of them. When Cat suddenly goes missing only a coming together miles and miles away from their homes can bring a resolution and the happiness they all deserve.

Perhaps over time I could grow to love Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos, but at the moment it simply wasn’t my favorite read of the recent past. When I initially picked it up I was intrigued by the plot summary and the potential for seeing a wonderful friendship come together after years apart. What I discovered, even within the first fifty pages, was a story that I not only had a difficult time following but one that was more negative than I’d expected. By the end, and I was certainly happy to have stuck it out until the last pages, I was satisfied with the ending and happy for a “happily ever after” finally.

One of the more difficult aspects of my reading and a large part of the reason I didn’t enjoy Falling Together was that the point of view constantly changed. It’s a pet peeve of mine personally, so this may not apply to everyone, but for me it was so difficult to tell who was telling the story at times that I couldn’t focus on the story. I’m not opposed to point of view changes at breaks or chapters between characters, but within chapters it’s all a bit confusing. There were times, even in the beginning, where the story was being told in third person and suddenly it would shift to what I felt was first person told by Pen. Not only that, but there were so many characters that switching the point of view made it nearly impossible to get a grasp on the story.

It was also the constant pessimism and negativity of the main character, Pen, that constantly grated on me. Her story of how Will and her separated after Cat left originally was hard to stomach. Even with her friend Amelie constantly pushing at her telling her it was obvious she was in love with Will she failed to accept it. In the end it was Will’s accusation of her feeling like she always had the need to feel “abandoned” that drove most of her actions in life. I completely agreed with this and trying to read a story where the main character is constantly pushing everyone away started to feel like she was pushing me as the reader away as well.

All in all Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos was a difficult read for me personally. It’s possible that the characters and situation simply struck the wrong chord with me. I’m certainly willing to try another of Marisa’s books as I know Leah was a huge fan of her book, Love Walked In. Unfortunately I felt Pen’s abandonment issues bled out into her connection with me as the reader and the point of view switches made it even more difficult. In the end I was happy with how Will and Pen’s relationship played out, even if it took quite a while to get there. I’m definitely hoping this was a missed note for me, but as I’ve said Falling Together simply wasn’t the read for me.

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