[LISTENED TO: August 2017] Falling In
Our trip to New Hampshire wasn’t going to be that long but I decided to really stock up on audio books. This one sounded interesting, but I was mostly intrigued because I’ve enjoyed Jessica Almasy’s narration in the past (she sounds very young and like she is always smiling).
I liked the premise of this story: a girl walks through a door into another world–not terribly original, I admit, but still interesting. And the way O’Roark Dowell set up the story was really promising.
The main character is Isabelle Bean, a middle school girl and a misfit. And I absolutely loved the way her character is set up:
Over the years Isabelle had demonstrated an impressive talent for irritating teachers to the extremes of their patience. It wasn’t something she set out to do. In fact, she never quite understood what she did to raise her teachers’ blood pressure to such dangerous levels. Neither did her teachers, and this irritated them even more. Teacher’s college had equipped them to handle nose pickers, fire starters, back talkers, hitters, biters, and whiners. But quiet girls who weren’t shy, girls who talked in riddles but were never actually rude, girls who simply refused to comb those confounded bangs out of their eyes, well, girls like that were beyond them.
Other kids in school don’t like her and she has no friends. In fact, whenever a new student comes and tries to befriend her, the other girls steal that person away. Not because they like the new person, but because they want Isabelle to be lonely.
Both of Isabelle’s parents were orphans–this is why Isabelle’s mother has no sense for interior design (gray is not a good bathroom color choice). Her mother also seems to have no imagination. But that’s what Isabelle has tons of (and why she gets in so much trouble).
Isabelle goes to the principal’s office and while she is waiting, another girl–normal, unobjectionable Charley Bender–comes hobbling along. She hurt her ankle in gym and is there to see the nurse.
Isabelle heard a strange noise coming from the nurse’s office–Charley was by herself–and was intrigued. Isabelle had heard strange noises a lot, particularly in school–humming,vibrating and the like. This new noise was different. So Isabelle went to investigate.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about the book was the author’s interruptions. Or if not the author’s, then Isabelle’s interruptions. Isabelle talks directly to us–sometimes like we are in class listening to her give a report, sometimes as if we are in bed reading (anyone who is eating Twizzlers while reading this book will be quite surprised!). Every once in a while she jumps in and talks directly to us–have we ever imagined opening a door and going into another place? Have we thought about killing spiders, even though we shouldn’t?–that sort of thing.
That’s a segue to Isabelle opening a door in the nurse’s office and falling in to a new world. She is immediately accosted by children who accuse her of being a witch (look at her red, shiny boots). The kids agree that she is too young to be a witch and she eventually convinces them that she is not one.
It turns out that the kids in this land are terrified of the witch. She has been said to eat babies. And she seems to terrorize the five villages in this world in a cycle. When it is the village’s turn to be targeted, the children flee to camps where they fend for themselves and watch out for each other. The kids tell Isabelle to head to the camp for safety. But Isabelle is far more interested in the witch, so she goes in the opposite direction.
We learn that Isabelle has always felt that life was pretty dull. She enjoys fairy tales and stories of other worlds. In fact, don’t tell anyone, but she believes that she herself is a changing–it certainly explains how she is so different from her mother. She admonishes readers who don’t know what a changeling is, telling them to demand their teachers teach them about really important stuff like changelings and not 2 + 2 equals the capital of Arizona.
On the path she meets a girl named Hen (I don’t know why this name delighted me so much). Hen has a British accent and very different ideas about things. She is the oldest of five children and is expected to look after the young ones. She resents the responsibility and thinks she is not very good at lit. On the way to the camps, when she left the path to pee, the other kids took off without her which is how Isabelle found her alone.
Hen is very afraid of the witch but is also feisty ad talks about throttling her. Isabelle likes Hen immediately (she normally doesn’t like anyone), and doesn’t want to leave her behind, so she tells Hen she knows a shortcut to the camps–which is really just a way to find the witch, of course.
Isabelle hurts her ankle and Hen shows her to the river to help keep the swelling down. While there, a woman gives some other healing advice. She is Grete the Healer. And she knows a lot about herbs and poultices and the like. Since Isabelle can’t walk, they wind up staying at Grete’s for a couple of days. And during that time Grete teaches them all about the plants in the area–what they do and how they can help.
And then Grete confides something to Isabelle (which I think we all figured out). Grete is “the witch.” But she is not a witch. She and her husband had lived in the woods. Her husband died before their baby was born. She explains that a woman living by herself in the woods always arouses suspicion. One day some kids came and begin throwing rocks at the baby.
Hen knew this story as well. In Hen’s version, the witch’s baby was killed by the children and the witch has been seeking her revenge ever since–killing and eating children.
In Grete’s version, the baby was actually taken by faeries. As far as killing other children, she believes that she summoned her own power and caused a branch to fall on one of the boys. But she was instantly sorry and has spent the rest of her life as a healer to try to make up for it.
Nevertheless people will naturally assume she is the witch. And she needs Isabelle’s help in setting the record straight.
Grete also tells her that they have a special connection and Isabelle is certain that Grete means that Isabelle was the baby who was stolen–making her a changeling! But Grete laughs saying that that baby would be nearly 60 years old by now. Isabelle suggests that time moves differently in different worlds but Grete says things don’t work like that.
Isabelle agrees to spread the word. But when they get to the camps, they find that the children there are sick (a girl with the flu entered the camp and spread it to everyone). So Hen and Isabelle have to go about saving everyone. I found this middle section to be a little slow going–there were a lot of details about her saving each individual child. But as they are searching the village, Isabelle hears Grete (in her head) cry out for help. She rushes back to her side only to find that Grete is dying (this section was pretty interesting). Some of the children are excited that she is weakened–they have come with sticks and other weapons.
Can Isabelle convince anyone that Grete is a good person? What will Hen do when she learns the truth about Grete? And what about Isabelle’s mom and everything back home?
I love Jessica Almasy’s reading style–sweet and perfect for a little girl. She did an impressive job with the various accents and characters (nearly everyone in Hen’s world has a rough British accent). The one thing that Almasy does a lot which I kind of like (but which may have gotten too much by the end) is that she tends to take lengthy dramatic pauses. Quite. A. Lot.
Some of them work well, but sometimes you can’t tell if the chapter has ended or if she has just paused. Especially since in this book some chapters are one sentence long.
I really enjoyed the beginning half of the book. I found the middle a little slow (but still interesting). And the ending was a little frustrating, but overall enjoyable.
Leave a Reply