Falling Under by Gwen Hayes
Genre: YA
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Goodreads Says: Theia Alderson has always led a sheltered life in the small California town of Serendipity Falls. But when a devastatingly handsome boy appears in the halls of her school, Theia knows she's seen Haden before- not around town, but in her dreams.
As the Haden of both the night and the day beckons her closer one moment and pushes her away the next, the only thing Theia knows for sure is that the incredible pull she feels towards him is stronger than her fear.
And when she discovers what Haden truly is, Theia's not sure if she wants to resist him, even if the cost is her soul.
I was browsing through the new releases for 2012 and ran into the sequel of Falling Under, Dreaming Awake. Naturally I had to read book 1 before reading book 2 and so I did. ;-)
Audio Book version.
Falling Under is a story where boy falls for girl from afar, girl watches boy fall from the sky as a fireball, girl then falls for boy, boy can't really be with girl because of some dark secret he has, boy keeps going after girl only to tell girl he has to push her away...and finally girl and boy sacrifice something for one another.
The girl, Theia, has been raised by a strict father and is pretty much a perfect daughter. She has two best friends who keep her grounded and try to keep her as normal as possible. One seems like a bad ass and the other is a sweet girl who has growing psychic powers.
Haden is this guy who fell down from the sky as a ball of fire. He falls for Theia long before he meets her but most of the book spends his time alternating between reaching out to Theia and then pushing her away. Haden is a
What I liked:
The narrator was English. I loved her accent and her pronunciation. I didn't feel that Theia sounded antiquated at all. She sounded smart and a really nice girl. The story was rather mysterious and the narrator's voice added to and sustained the mystery.
The writer can write. She did a good job in character building and building this mysterious world called Under where Theia and Haden meet each other in dreams. In my eyes the story was unique because it made me feel as if the concept was brand new and in some aspects it totally was.
I enjoyed listening to Theia grow as a person and character. She started to do things that were more daring but not on a crazy level. She was shy but decided to play match maker for her friends. She didn't really know how to talk to guy friends and she stepped out of her comfort zone to hook her friends up. It was cute. At one point she stepped up to Haden and kissed him after he had kind of pushed her away. She did it as a statement letting him know that he wasn't going to be allowed to pull her in just to push her away again. I also liked Theia's courage. It was genuine.
OH and I liked that towards the end the author wrote in both Theia and Haden's pov's. I rather enjoyed the Haden parts.
What I didn't like... yeah... not so much:
It took more than half the book to finally find out what the heck Haden was. Was he an alien or an angel, a super hero, warrior, Roger Rabbit? I don't know...It just shouldn't have taken that long to find out!!!
The author invested a good amount of time building up Theia as a character. I thought I knew Theia pretty well until she starts reacting rather childish to some things. I mean she seems the most mature and the smartest of her little group so why is it that when Haden TELLS her that he can't seem to stay away from her but has to because he is bad news she flips when he kind of brushes her off the next day at school? First off, the scenes where he is brushing her off were mild to me. Definitely not scenes where I will run off and cry. So maybe those scenes could have been written better. OK let me explain this a bit better. Theia and Haden have moments. These moments consist of looks and smiles but nothing concrete. Theia overreacts to seeing Haden kissing another girl as if she is dating the guy when nothing was official. SEE CHILDISH.
I think the last thing that has me on the fence is that SOME of the "holy crap" scenes were just not so "holy crap"ish. They were like... ok. MELLOW. This could just be because of how it was narrated.
I'm still intrigued by the overall plot. I am curious if the second book will be better than the first since the first was more like background info... ground work, laying the foundation. Hopefully the second will have more action. Hmmm... everyone WAS coming into their own in the first. It would be nice to see them as a force to reckon with in the second.
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