Big Reads: Before The Fall

Guys... I stayed up until 2 am Saturday night to finish this book because I could. not. put. it. down.

This is coming from a person who tries to be asleep around 9 pm every night, because do you know who cares that you stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading? Not a three year old. I had to have second dinner, I stayed up so late.

Needless to say, I really enjoyed this book! It didn't really have me on the edge of my seat until the last quarter of the book, but it was by no means slow before that.

Before the Fall is the story of a private plane that goes down over the Atlantic and the only survivors are a penniless artist, and the four year old son of a news media mogul. That four year old is now a millionaire, obviously. So, there are many questions about what happened, who did it, and why. There are also many questions about why this artist was on a private plane with millionaires. And it turns out that nearly every person on board has some reason people might want them dead.

Though this was a very plot driven book, there were some really great lines that I had to stop and take a picture of the page with my phone so I wouldn't forget.

Things like:

"They are on a planet called Earth at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. Spinning, always spinning. Everything in the universe appears to move in a circular pattern, celestial objects rotating in orbit. Forces of push and pull that dwarf the industry of man or beast. Even in planetary terms we are small - one man afloat in an entire ocean, a speck in the waves. We believe our capacity for reason makes us bigger than we are, our ability to understand the infinite vastness of celestial bodies. But the truth is, this sense of scale only shrinks us."

 And:

"As he walked into the barn he felt the urge for a drink, but it was a scar, not a scab, and he didn't pick it."

And:

"Life is made of these moments - of one's physical being moving through time and space - and we string them together into a story, and that story becomes your life."

Noah Hawley is quite the renaissance man, but primarily a producer and screenwriter, and I think that showed in the way he wrote dialogue. I absolutely loved the dialogue in this! It was how people really talk when they get nervous or upset - lots of stops and starts and it just seemed really real to me. I hope this gets optioned for a movie becuase I think it would be a great one.

Also, I have always hated 24 hour news. I think it is one of the worst things that has ever happened to this world. This book made me hate it even more.

I'm two for two on Book of the Month Club books. I loved this AND Sleeping Giants. Gives me even higher hopes for the three I selected this month.

Have you read Before the Fall? What did you think?

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