Me on The Way We Fall

Title: The Way We Fall
Author: Megan Crewe
Release Date: January 24, 2012
Publisher: Hyperion

When a deadly virus spreads through Kaelyn's community, the government steps in and places the island under quarantine. Those that stay uninfected must battle for dwindling supplies or lose their chance to survive. When the mysterious virus starts to rob her of her friends and family, she clings to the belief that there's a way to keep those closest to her alive. Because, if there isn't, how will she go on?

Megan Crewe gives readers a plain, normal girl and her struggle to find her inner strength and bravery, to push past her own limits and grow, to survive when most are dropping around her, leaving her alone. This book is a mix of self-discovery and the fight to stay alive in an increasingly bleak and isolated setting.

The book is written in journal entries, like unsent letters to an old friend untalked to for years. It's like Kaelyn needs to talk to someone while the virus hits, someone on the outside, someone who won't talk back. Someone who won't question why she's worried or fearful or close to the edge of giving up.

The disease aspect kept me reading, as did the bleak setting. Everything felt so real. The smell of disease, the isolation, the fear and the concern. The paranoia of the uninfected and their desire to remove anything and anyone that could be carrying the disease. The island becomes a powder keg of fear, anger, and confusion during the quarantine, waiting for the single spark that will set everything aflame.

More importantly, this book is about survival, about the desire to survive and continue living, even when everything around you has crumbled into dust. The fear of being alone is powerful, it can make you strive for something familiar, for someone to tell you you're not alone.

Moving and powerful, The Way We Fall is insight into a young girl's world as everything falls apart while she's helpless to stop it. Whether or not Kaelyn has the strength to carry on, to live, to survive and wait for the world to change, is up to her.

(I received a copy of this book from Hachette Book Group Canada.)