Fall for Anything

The Quickie Review

Eddie’s father has committed suicide and the grief of it is consuming her, swallowing her whole, she cannot continue with her life until she discovers an answer to a question she may never find, the question being why? Why did he commit suicide when he had a seemingly perfect life? Was it because of Eddie or her mother, did they disappoint him in some way? Was it because he lost the passion he had for his work? Now Eddie’s whole life is all about finding an answer to this question even if it means distancing herself from her best friend and mother in order to join a man, Culler Evans, she barely knows who is helping her find the answers she so desperately wants, but can Eddie really trust Culler, is he genuine or show more does he have ulterior motives? Fall for Anything is an amazingly powerful novel which describes in such raw and honest language how the suicide of a love one can affect a family.

You simply cannot read Fall for Anything and forget about it, it stays with you well after finishing it, it’s a novel which gets under your skin and makes you think and really question things. Whilst these novels are not for everyone, as the subject matter is quite depressing, for me these are the best kind of novels. If this sounds like something you’d like you definitely should read this novel it’s, to put it simply, amazing, I just adored it.

The Full Blown Review

Eddie Reeves life has basically stopped, her whole life is consumed by finding out why her seemingly happy and loving father, Seth Reeves, committed suicide. But finding out why he committed suicide is not an easy task after all how do you get answers from a dead man? But trying to figure out why her father committed suicide brings up things Eddie never thought she would have questioned like whether or not she really knew her father at all? Who exactly was he to do this and how could he do this to Eddie and her mum if he really loved them. To Eddie it’s like her father had this whole other life he kept separate from Eddie and her mother. Whilst Eddie is going through this emotional turmoil Culler Evans, Seth Reeves’s student, enters Eddie’s world. Suddenly Eddie is not alone in her grief someone else appears to be just as concerned as Eddie is at trying to discover why he committed suicide. He also appears to know more about Seth Reeves’s other life which Eddie has no idea about. Now with Culler in the picture it’s more important than ever for Eddie to find out why he committed suicide even if it means distancing herself from her best friend Milo and her mother, who seems to be just a shell of the person she used to be before her husbands death. Whilst each step taken with Culler seems to bring Eddie closer to the answer she so desperately wants, is she really ready for the answer?

I don’t know where to really begin this review as I don’t believe I can give this book the justice it deserves, I was simply blow away by how emotional and confronting this book was for me. Part of the reason I was so emotional over it was probably because the day I started this book I went to a funeral for an old friend from primary school whose father passed away unexpectedly and I saw with my own eyes how it affected everyone, there are no words to describe how sad it was. So before I even started the book I was already thinking about death especially when it comes unexpectedly as is the case for both the book and my old friends father.

When describing grief and loss, words seem so inadequate, how do you put someone’s grief into words? It is so difficult and subjective, yet Summers’ does it brilliantly. It is because of this I adore Summers’ writing style there is something so raw and honest about it, Eddie’s grief was so palpable throughout the entire novel and the way it was written I could understand and feel her grief, it made me want to cry for her and give her a big hug whilst telling her it’s going to be ok.

Death especially suicide as well as how people deal with their grief is still often treated as a taboo subject and is not often discussed, but when it is it must be handled with care and Summers’ achieves this. She never sensationalizes the suicide or the grief the characters are going through. It is a realistic novel with each character showing grief that individuals would actually show with Eddie fixated to the point of obsession on trying to figure out the why of her father’s suicide, Eddie’s mother’s complete breakdown with the loss of her husband and Milo’s refusal to discuss what exactly happened that night.

Eddie was such an emotionally damaged character, it was so depressing reading from her point of view. The only way Eddie found she could deal with her grief over her fathers loss was to find out why he did what he did which became an obsession. To me Eddie seemed like she was shell, she was going through the motions of everyday life but nothing was getting through, all she cared about or thought about was her fathers suicide and discovering why. Her father’s suicide encroached on every facet of her life even her friendship with her best friend Milo who found Eddie the night of her fathers suicide but won’t tell her what happened on that night which frustrates Eddie no end, she cannot understand why he won’t tell her what happened. In order to help her come to terms with his suicide Eddie separated the two facets of her father’s life into 1) the loving and kind father Eddie knew and loved with all her heart who would never kill himself and 2) the famous photographer and the person she knew nothing about. It is this person that Eddie wants to discover more about in order to find out why he committed suicide because she simply cannot comprehend her father committing suicide due to his life with Eddie and her mother whereas there must be something in his other life that left him suicidal. However, soon Eddie starts to question this line of thought, perhaps it was his home life, and more specifically Eddie, that caused his suicide.

Now we get to Culler Evans, Seth Reeves’s student, he was an interesting character and after finishing the book I definitely have strong feelings about him however I am not going to say which way those feelings lean (I either really love him or really despise him) as I don’t want to give away the plot of the novel, you’ll just have to read the book in order to find out what I feel about him as I’m sure you’ll feel the same way as I do. My feelings aside I did have an issue with Culler (which continued throughout most of the book), I was never really sure Eddie could trust him even when he appeared to be helping her I was still suspicious of his motives, I mean yes he wants to find out why Seth Reeves committed suicide just like Eddie but still what’s a 21 year old man hanging around a 17 year old high school student for, it’s a bit creepy.

Milo (l absolutely love the name) was another interesting character who had real depth to him and FYI he’s pretty swoon worthy and oh heck I’m going to say it I wanted Eddie to end up with Milo. Both Eddie and Milo were so close before the suicide but now things are strained partly due to Milo’s refusal to tell Eddie what happened on the night of her father’s suicide. Throughout the novel Eddie was always asking Milo to tell her what happened on that night but Milo kept on refusing to talk about it which frustrated Eddie and I have to say me as well, by the end of the book I was so desperate to find out why he wouldn’t tell Eddie what happened. Finally when he does tell Eddie the answer it is so emotional and shows how much he loves and cares for Eddie whilst also indicating that Eddie and her mother were not the only people emotionally affected by the events of that night, Milo was as well, he just had a different way of coping with his grief.

In the end Eddie doesn’t get the answer she’s searching for but I don’t think anybody that’s left behind when someone they love dearly commits suicide can ever understand the why of it because those committing suicide are in a totally different frame of mind which is incomprehensible to everyone but them. All you can really do is acknowledge that it happened and hope they have finally found the peace they failed to find in their life. Whilst the reasons for suicide are often uncertain what is certain, which is conveyed perfectly in this novel, is that suicide tears families apart.

Whilst the subject matter is not easy (I found it quite confronting at times) Fall for Anything is such a beautiful novel about grief and how suicide leaves such a lasting effect. I feel like there is so much more I could say about this book but I’m going to leave it there, if you want more you’ll just have to read this book, trust me you’ll love it. show less

Have you ever had a delayed reaction to something? You don’t react when it actually happens, but later, the enormity of what has happened and the emotions you have because of it sort creep up behind you and hit you in the back. Not to your head, because you’re always conscious, but right to your spine, so you feel the hit.

That was my experience with Fall for Anything. When I finished it, I was like, “Yeah, good book: steady plot, interesting characters, good writing, some shocking moments at the exact right times. Yeah, solid read.” But I wasn’t emotionally attached. I just wasn’t – something didn’t click.

And then I started writing my review, and I was really surprised at the emotions that sneaked their hands around my show more waist from behind. And then I realized precisely how much I liked Eddie. And how much I wanted to absolutely punch almost everyone around her, including her catatonic mother. And then I would find her dad’s grave, dig him up, and punch him, too (hey, he left her in horrendous situation – completely pro-Eddie, here). We won’t talk about what I wanted to do to her mom’s best friend.

Wow, does that sound angry? Yeah, I was angry. What Eddie went through was bullshit, pure and simple. Unfortunately, it happens. In short, dad checked out permanently, mom was present but um, vacant, you could say, and mom’s unwelcome best friend (Beth) checked-in, but not for Eddie, the 17 year-old in this story. Oh no, she checked in for mummy WHO SHOULD HAVE DONE BETTER!

Basically, everyone (save one person) abandoned Eddie in the book. And then Eddie’s grief high jacked her own better judgment and sense of clarity (thanks, daddy-o).

Excuse me why I go take friggin’ deep cleansing breath (I hate you, Beth).

Okay, good now – let’s get back to the basics then, shall we?

Right from the start, Eddie simply wasn’t a character I could pity. I actually think she’d be pretty pissed at me if I did. It got me thinking, “When did pity become a bad thing?” After all, it’s akin to sympathy, and feeling a heartfelt, emotional connection with someone isn’t usually a bad thing. I think pity is different because the word has developed this connotation of being a face value emotion. It’s like saying, “Oh, that’s such a shame. Well, call me next week – I have to fix dinner now.” Feeling pity for a character like Eddie would’ve been like leaving a casserole on her doorstep, but never actually being there for her. It’s thinking someone won’t be able to claw back to hope, and you're already looking at them like they’re washed up. Pity is too defeatist and shallow an emotion to offer up to someone who has been through a personal hell and just wants answers.

Eddie’s father has left her in a severe state of mental anguish with absolutely jack to hold onto. When we first meet Eddie, I don’t think she even knows how deep the pain runs – it’s literally to the point where she's numb, and she’s experiencing psychosomatic symptoms. If her mom was with it, maybe she could've have gotten Eddie into grief counseling, but that was a no-go. To make matters just peachy, her best friend has moved in to ***motivate*** her mom back to life – think a female version of Richard Simmons with a more militant attitude and less compassion, but she would completely whip out some jazz hands if she thought it would help Eddie’s mom. I could appreciate it, if she wasn’t so harsh towards Eddie.

Cherry that sundae of sadness with Culler. Yes, please do say that name with an italicized emphasis and disgusted sneer – out of the people who used Eddie and/or her mother’s loss for personal gain (although they lied to themselves and called it something else), this guy was the worse. He could’ve been a great, big brother type for her in a perfect world, or picked the road of aloof kindness, but life’s about decisions, no? And Mr. Artsy Photographer made his. He was the variable in this book, the what-if monkey wrench who turned into a. . . well, I won’t tell you what he did, obviously. Drop me a line when you find out and we’ll have a character roast.

And, oh Milo, bless that guy for being Eddie’s personal lighthouse. She needed a rock Unfortunately, both she and Milo were both dealing with grief, and that clouded both their decisions. The choices that Eddie made from her grief, from her father’s selfish, selfish decision. . . he would’ve died twice had seen the circumstances his daughter put herself in. Grief can make you do crazy things, but you are searching for peace so hard that the decisions seem rational and needed. Eddie felt she needed to do something because the actual truth of why her father took his own life had no rationale to it - it wasn't something she could face, especially since he had rational reasons for staying (like being there for her). Eddie wanted steady ground to stand on. The things she did were stupid and naive, but no, I can’t bring myself to blame her. After all, would I have done any different, being 17, physically abandoned by one parent and emotionally by another? That’s the real trick about this book – most of the characters were authentic. So believable. Even when Eddie was doing something crazy, it still felt real. If you had to switch shoes with her, you might find yourself doing the same. That’s the sad part: I still don’t know if she’s going to be okay. I don’t think we’re meant to.

I didn’t cry while reading this book. Like I said, there was a detachment there that kept me from really sinking in. But, if Eddie were real, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from checking on her at night, just like Milo did. I didn’t completely connect with her, but I sure did care about what happened to her.

Okay, now I’m tearing up a bit.

Yeah, I recommend this book. show less

Eddie’s once famous photographer father committed suicide two months ago. Her mother ignores her and just sits in her dad’s chair wearing his old housecoat. Beth, her mother’s best friends, and a woman Eddie hates has decided to move in. According to Beth everything must be done to get her mother out of her depression. No one seems to understand that Eddie is hurting too. The thing that gets to her is why did her dad do it? She thought he was happy, thought he had a good life, thought he loved her. Why would he kill himself and leave them wondering. Eddie is consumed by this question and nothing her best friend Milo does can get her out of this funk. Eddie is constantly sneaking out and going to the place where her dad committed show more suicide. One day she notices she isn’t alone. A guy is there and he says that he was a student of her father’s. He seems to be just as lost as she is. They find her father’s initials engraved in a building and sequential numbers on the back of her father’s photos, the only thing that he left behind. They will go on a journey, looking for clues as why her father killed himself. Eddie has to make the choice of moving on or giving up like her father did.

This was my first Courtney Summers book and after reading it, I’m going to buy all of them tomorrow. Not even going to read what they are about, just going to buy them. Eddie’s voice in this book was so heartbreaking and so alone. I felt for her, I found myself wanting to comfort her, knock some sense into those around her. I wanted her to be better, be happy, and find all of her answers. She was just so stark and solitary. I connected to her. As for Beth and Eddie’s mother I wanted to punch one and tell her to leave Eddie the hell alone and wanted to shake the other and tell her to remember she had a daughter. I liked the contrast between Milo and Culler and how they related to Eddie in their own unique way. I can’t express how much I loved this book. I connected to the characters and found myself invested in how her life would be after her questions were answered. I couldn’t get enough. I devoured this book. What more could a reader ask for? I give this book a 5 STAR rating. READ IT! show less

When someone dies – no matter the circumstances surrounding their death – it is the people left behind that have to pick up the pieces of their broken hearts and try to live. But when that person ended their own life, those pieces are shattered into pieces so miniscule that they can’t even be found. Eddie’s questions are painful because, not only is the one person who could answer them gone forever, the people left behind are so absorbed in their own grief that they don’t even realize how lost Eddie is – until Culler. He not only misses her father, he wants answers of his own, so when he finds something at the site of his death, both he and Eddie hold on to that as the last thread of hope for closure, or something close to show more it.
The journey they go on in their attempt to find answers is emotional. Eddie’s pain is so fresh that everything they find is like someone prodding at a wound. She pushes aside everything else in her life to follow this obsession, and as I read I ached for her as it seemed apparent that, no matter what she found, it wouldn’t help. And even though I had a pretty good idea of what was at the end of the road, I kept hoping that Eddie would miraculously find all the answers she needed and be perfectly whole again, even though I knew that wouldn’t happen. (Not a spoiler, I swear. I mean, is anyone ever really perfectly whole again after the death of a parent? No. This is my point.) That’s the wonderfully brilliant thing about Courtney Summers – she writes things that are so painful yet so compelling at the same time that I can’t look away.
Also, a bonus: this book addresses the hard questions in life, like, Why in the world do people send you lame sympathy cards when someone you love dies? They don’t help, and you’ve killed innocent trees in the process. I think sympathy cards should be outlawed. For real. show less

I am crowning Courtney Summers the Queen of Contemporary YA fiction. Very rarely do books play with my heartstrings and make me actually feel for the characters, but she hits the ball of the park. My first experience with her phenomenal writing was with Some Girls Are, where she did the impossible and made me sympathetic for a school bully. In Fall For Anything, she made my heart ache for Eddie, a girl barely coping from the unexpected suicide of her nearly famous father.

Plot wise, there’s not much to this book; Eddie runs away with Culler, a former photography student of her father’s, to seek out the markings that have been popping up in places that he’s photographed. She spends the entire novel searching for answers. She’s show more desperate to know why he killed himself, but with the dramatic and intense emotions that come to life off the pages, it’s easy for the reader to become desperate for answers as well. From the first sentence, I was hooked and affected, but by the time I finished, I was downright mentally exhausted.

Overall, Courtney Summers exceeds and soars over expectations with Fall For Anything. Eddie’s painful thoughts and narration reach out and grab you, strapping you into the backseat of her brain as you delve into this heartbreaking tale of loss and the aftermath surrounding it. I absolutely recommend it to everyone; it’s a must-read-this-second kind of book! show less

The intensity of Courtney Summers‘ latest novel hits you on page one. I love books like this — books that grab you around the middle and don’t let go until you’ve turned the last page. FALL FOR ANYTHING definitely had a hold on me.

Eddie Reeves is the daughter of the notorious once-famous photographer Seth Reeves — a man who seemed to be contented in his work and in his family. But he killed himself, leaving Eddie and her mother to grieve, alone, and to wonder how well they knew the man at all. Eddie’s mother is practically catatonic — barely speaking, wearing her father’s housecoat day in and day out. As if it wasn’t already bad enough, Eddie’s mother’s best friend is taking over the household. Beth is too peppy, show more too health-nutty, and too demanding of Eddie, overly concerned about her mother with no regard for the hole suicide left in Eddie, too. Secretly, Eddie starts visiting the site of her father’s death, which is where she meets Culler. Culler was a student of her dad’s, and he’s older, and mysterious, and he has ideas that could lead her to maybe understand her dad a little better. And even though Eddie’s best friend, Milo, thinks he’s totally bad news, Eddie can’t help herself. She wants to spend every moment she can with Culler — even if Milo’s right.

FALL FOR ANYTHING is a book that’s impossible to let go, with characters that spark a deep emotion in the reader. You can’t help but loathe Beth, feel for Milo, and want to shake Eddie’s mom. And you so just want to pull Eddie aside and tell her it’s going to be okay. If you’ve loved books like Laurie Halse Anderson‘s SPEAK or THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE by Jandy Nelson, you need to pick up FALL FOR ANYTHING as soon as possible. show less

Courtney Summers is the Queen of Mean; she holds hold court over characters that readers love to hate... and just plain love. Readers are well aware that Summers can write a compelling mean girl, but, with FALL FOR ANYTHING, she shows us that she can write vulnerable and broken with just as much skill.

I quickly realized that Eddie wasn't anything like Summers' previous two main characters, Parker and Regina. Eddie has never dated the most popular guy in school, she doesn't bully, and, most notably, she doesn't hide her pain and vulnerability behind a mean exterior. She's had one best friend, Milo, for years, and, except for the occasional girlfriend, it's them against the world. That is, until her father commits suicide, Milo refuses to show more talk about what happened that fateful night, and Eddie meets Culler Evans.

Eddie's quest to find the reason for father's sudden death is painfully sad and incredibly moving. The novel begins "My hands are dying" and this line stayed with me throughout the novel. Since the night her father died, of which she only has a hazy, incomplete memory, Eddie does not feel alive. She constantly analyzes her father's actions, his words, his life, looking for the reason behind his departure. And when Culler Evans, her father's student whom she's never met, reaches out to her, she holds on for dear life because he's the only person who makes her feels alive. For the first time, something and someone has come between Eddie and Milo, despite the fact that Eddie might need Milo now more than ever.

I'll openly admit that I love everything I've read by Summers, so maybe my opinion regarding this novel is biased... or maybe, my love for her previous novels, CRACKED UP TO BE and SOME GIRLS ARE, and newfound adoration for FALL FOR ANYTHING, offers proof of just how wonderful her stories and characters are and will convince you to pick up these titles for your own collection. show less