Today I am super excited to be part of the Rock Star blog tour for THE FALL by Bethany Griffin! First off, I'll be sharing what I thought of this super creepy book, and then you'll have a chance to win a hardcover copy and a gorgeous prize pack!
Here we go!
The Fallby Bethany Griffin
♦publisher: Greenwillow Books
♦release date: October 7, 2014
♦hardcover, 437 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
♦source: from publisher for honest review
Madeline Usher is doomed.
She has spent her life fighting fate, and she thought she was succeeding. Until she woke up in a coffin.
Ushers die young. Ushers are cursed. Ushers can never leave their house, a house that haunts and is haunted, a house that almost seems to have a mind of its own. Madeline’s life—revealed through short bursts of memory—has hinged around her desperate plan to escape, to save herself and her brother. Her only chance lies in destroying the house.
In the end, can Madeline keep her own sanity and bring the house down? The Fall is a literary psychological thriller, reimagining Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Fall of the House of Usher.
She has spent her life fighting fate, and she thought she was succeeding. Until she woke up in a coffin.
Ushers die young. Ushers are cursed. Ushers can never leave their house, a house that haunts and is haunted, a house that almost seems to have a mind of its own. Madeline’s life—revealed through short bursts of memory—has hinged around her desperate plan to escape, to save herself and her brother. Her only chance lies in destroying the house.
In the end, can Madeline keep her own sanity and bring the house down? The Fall is a literary psychological thriller, reimagining Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Fall of the House of Usher.
Review: In Bethany Griffin’s second foray into reimagining the works of Poe, she stays respectfully close to the bare bones of The Fall of the House of Usher, but cleverly turns the storytelling voice over to Madeline, the young woman of the house who eventually finds herself buried alive. In short and wildly intense chapters, she alternates between Madeline at different ages to perfectly show both how the house possesses her, tries to appease her, and how she must fight against it to stay in control of her sanity.
I quickly found myself immersed in the haunting atmosphere and eerie occurrences of The Fall. Griffin’s writing is full of beautiful descriptions and hypnotic prose, and from the first chapter, it successfully makes the reader’s blood run cold with her absolutely phobia-triggering description of being buried alive. The story builds in intensity in a way that feels like the tightening of a screw, with each brief chapter flipping back and forth in time and giving us another small glimpse at the whole picture. In fact, the only thing that might have improved this book for me would have been to see a tiny bit more of a distinction between Madeline's younger voice and her older teen voice. At either age, it’s easy to feel for Madeline’s plight as her every attempt to outwit the house is foiled and everyone around her falls into either madness or peril.
Intermixed with Madeline’s point of view are journal entries from Lisbeth Usher who, like Madeline, was trying to escape. I loved this addition and though it cleverly added some great depth and backstory. This bleak, horrific tale will make the perfect Halloween read. This may even be one that I reread every October to set the mood for spookiness!
About Bethany:
Bethany Griffin is a high school English teacher who prides herself on attracting creative misfits to elective classes like Young Adult Literature, Creative Writing, and Speculative Literature. She is the author of HANDCUFFS, MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, DANCE OF THE RED DEATH, GLITTER AND DOOM, and THE FALL. She lives with her family in Kentucky.
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And now for the Tour Giveaway!!
Prizes:
Be sure to visit the rest of the stops on the tour!
