Why?

Well it’s been a full week since my last Book Blurt, so I figure it’s time to write another one. This week, I read a book that was suggested to me by my boss. For the past couple weeks, Karen and I have been joking about her recent tendency to read violent, depressing, or macabre novels, which we think is rather amusing because that isn’t her normal kind of novel. But, this one was a very well-written, although very intense, find.

Fall for Anything is a new release from Courtney Summers. It gives us a first person perspective from Eddie Reeves (who is actually a seventeen-year-old girl despite her name). The book opens a few weeks after her father’s apparent suicide. Her father was a brilliant photographer, who went the non-traditional route of sharing his work outside of galleries. But, at the prime of his career, when fame and fortune were in his grasp, he walked away from it all. He decided to marry a woman about half his age, and had a daughter named Eddie. And now, he is dead.

Eddie is still trying to deal with that fact, and the only question she seems to be able to ask is why? Why did he do it? Why is she still here and he isn’t? Her mother is almost catatonic, Beth, her mother’s “best” friend has invaded her home, and Milo, her best friend since forever won’t talk to her about the night it happened. To complicate things, Culler Evans, who claims he was her dad’s student, shows up looking for answers to the same questions she is.

Through this novel, Eddie comes face to face with the death of her father, and has to process what it could mean and why he possibly could have done it. Although it deals with death, suicide, and grief, I enjoyed the novel. It seemed to ask, what do you do afterwards? How do you move on? What is the point? Although Eddie doesn’t find the answers, her search makes you consider the answers you have to these universal questions. Although it’s hard to put my finger on it, a character searching through these questions might be where the appeal of the book comes from.

But, this novel does get into situations, that even though they are realistic for some teens today, are objectionable. There are a few nude scenes, characters drop the f-bomb and other colorful words pretty casually, and the subject matter is obviously pretty dark. Even though the book is well-written and interesting, these are some obvious drawbacks to consider before you dive into Eddie's search.