Don't Fall by Rachel Schieffelbein

Title: Don't Fall

Author: Rachel Schieffelbein 

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Online Ratings: 4 out of 5 stars

*I RECEIVED THIS BOOK IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW*

NO SPOILERS! 

Summary from Goodreads:

In which a teenage girl endures the over-protective love of her adoptive mother until she falls for a boy who has her wanting to spread her wings, pitched as a contemporary retelling of Rapunzel.

Seventeen-year-old Anya leads a very secluded life in a house on the edge of town with her adopted mother. She doesn't go to school, but instead has a private tutor. Her over-protective mom keeps her so sheltered that she doesn't even have a best friend. 

But Anya doesn't seem to mind. She has her books, her photography, and her daydreams, and would do anything to please her mom. Until one day at the library, the only place she's allowed to go, she takes a picture of a beautiful boy.

Before long she's lying to her mom, and sneaking out late at night to meet Zander. But Zander wants more than a secret romance. If Anya wants to be with the boy of her dreams, she will have to risk her relationship with the only other person she's ever cared about.

My Opinion:

Don't Fall by Rachel Schieffelbein is a modern, re-telling of the classic, 'Rapunzel'. The aspects of Rapunzel were conveyed in this book through the characters and the environment they are living in but this story also had it's own twist to make it special and different from other fairytale re-tellings. This contemporary, love story is a short, interesting read. Schieffelbein has written an excellent book which made the readers feel as if they were present in Anya and Zander's world. Although the beginning was quite slow and difficult to "get into" the story later progressed to a fun, fast paced read. Anya's character was quite unique and special but at times I found her difficult to relate too. Other than that, her character was quite outstanding and courageous. Living through the rules of her overprotective mother was represented through the novel intelligently by Schieffelbein. Zander's character was very opposite to Anya's as I found him relatable too and also the perfect fictional male character. The main romance relationship in this novel was paced out well and was not forced in any way. The novel, which was written in duel narrative, gave us an equal amount of insight on both Anya's and Zander's lives which helped express the emotion of each character more and allowed us, as the readers, to feel a deep connection with the characters. Don't Fall dealt with strong themes such as family and other relationships which Schieffelbein expressed brilliantly throughout her novel. Her elegant writing skills helped tie in the novel all together including unsolved questions and other mysterious to be solved. At times I felt this novel lacking reality and excluding events that would happen in real life relationships. In my point of view, the ending was too perfect to be true, in other words cliche and I really wish the ending was more real as I believed that this novel had potential to be extraordinary. Overall this novel was a fun read and I would definitely recommend it to readers in their teens who enjoy romance. 

- Erisha <4