I've never known why Monday gets all the credit for being the worst day of the week. I disagree entirely. Sundays are.
And just like that, this book pulled me in.
The first time I heard about Estelle Maskame was on Twitter, way back to that Summer when everyone was talking about the DIMILY series. I didn't know about the series, nor about Estelle who, surprisingly enough, was following me on Twitter (that's a bit crazy, isn't it?) so I decided to do my research and found out she had three books out by the time she was a freaking teenager! How impressive is that?
Anyway, I did read the trilogy and really enjoyed it. But when she announced another book was on its way, I was very very excited to fall into another of her stories and silently hoping it would be a bit more for adults. And it was. SO MUCH DIFFERENT from her first books and yet, I think it's the best one. It was much more "grown-up" in a way and the topics of this book were so important and deep and way more relatable and interesting.
Jaden and McKenzie were falling for each other before Jaden's life changed for the worst. When his and his sister's parents died in a car accident, Kenzie feels like she can't take it, she can't be there for him and Danielle when she had her own battles to fight under her own roof. But destiny has its own way to manifest and one night, the two meet again, totally unexpected and there, right in front of him and that crooked smile she grew to love, Kenzie couldn't hide her feelings anymore. But life can be a bitch and when you least expect it, when things start to fall into place, you find yourself going down and Kenzie felt it too, torn between her love for Jaden and her best friends, she has to learn to open up to those that care about her and let the events take their course without falling down but in.
This book was good and with no surprise at all, it has four stars on Goodreads. Rightfully so.
It was very fast-paced, I felt like I fley through the pages and read it in one sitting, under-eyes bags and all. The way Estelle describes the places in which she sets her books is fascinating, I mean, I read that she never went to America back when she was writing DIMILY and yet, she captured the cities so well and the same happened with Dare to Fall.
I absolutely loved the idea of talking about very important topics, like alcoholism, grief, without making it feel forced, with a tenderness to it that I really truly appreciated.
All the characters were great! With their flaws and everything, they were very very relatable and complex. Take Kenzie, for example you know something's up with her but you don't know what exactly but when you do, you look at her with new eyes, you admire her and forgive her all those times where you wanted to scream at her.
But Jaden was just MY FAVOURITE. The way he keeps loving life and being alive despite everything that happened to his family is admirable. It would have been so easy to just give up and take another way but he didn't because he wanted to honour his parents by being the person they raised him to be.
"I think about the time Dad accidentally hurled a football at my face in the back yard," he begins, rolling his eyes, "and I think about the time Mom once accidentally food-poisoned us all. And it makes maugh, because I'm so lucky that those crazy fools were mine."
"They taught me to be a good person," he says, "and to believe in myself, and to work hard to get to where I want to be, and to look out for Dani, and that it's okay to mess up along the way because they were always there to forgive us."
WHAT I LOVED
- grown-up topics
- family drama
- friendship. It did hit too close to home.
- the grandparents! I feel like grandparents are banned from books but they exist and they are amazing! More of them, please!
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
- family relationships
- romance. The cute kind. Not the fluffy everything-is-good-let's-walk-over-the-rainbow kinda romance.
- grief and very difficult topics
- second chances and responsabilities
- diversity
- horrible decisions
The only thing I would say about this book that I didn't actually like was the ending. I expected more, it was kinda rushed and open. I still have questions like: what happens to Kenzie and Dani's friendship? What happens to Kenzie's mom? To Darren? There were a lot of things left unfinished and I was really hoping for a second book to justify this choice of letting things uncovered but the author clearly said that there is no second book, so...
But truly, this book was great, if you like contemporaries but not the fluffy kind, the more grown-up, then go read this book, you can thank me later 😉
DARE TO FALL
McKenzie Rivers seems like she has it all figured out.
She has great friends, she's doing well in school and her handsome ex-boyfriend is desperate to win her back. But something is missing from her life in Windsor, Colorado. And as much as she hates to admit it, that something might be Jaden Hunter.
Tall, blond and athletic, a year ago Kenzie was falling fast for him and his crooked smile.
Twelve months later, everything has changed. A tragic accident had destroyed Jaden's family and, despite the way she feels, Kenzie has no idea how to talk to him anymore. She is all too familiar with the impact family tragedy can have on the people she loves, and she can't bear to go through it again with Jaden. She does the only thing she knows how to do: walk away.
When the pair meet again by chance one night, Kenzie realizes that she can't ignore her feeling for him any longer. But as she is drawn back into Jaden's life, she finds herself caught between her increasingly volatile best friend, her interfering ex-boyfriend and her own fears about opening up to Jaden.
Will Kenzie dare to fall for the one person she's so afraid of growing close to?
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