Y'all this book. My first five star of 2019 and law, it was a great one. Sadly, I'm not going to talk much about the specifics. I have a video up with my thoughts (on Instagram under TheSouthernGirlReads) as to why it was a five star read. I would encourage you to watch that. I will say this...I went into The Night Olivia Fell thinking it was a thriller. I would not place it haphazardly in that category. In my opinion it is a very well done family drama...with a mystery.
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Bottom line. If you enjoy thought provoking, mysteries, grab this one. It's a quick read and in my opinion, very well done.
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Do you have books where you don't even want to elaborate? You just want to yell...read this book? Yea, that's me with this one lol!

This is a totally gut-wrenching story of a mother and daughter who seem to have lost each other in a sea of deception and lies. Abi awakens one night to answer the call that no parent wants to hear: Olivia is in the hospital after a fall from a bridge. The rest of the book is a series of flashbacks for Abi and Olivia as the secrets between the two are slowly unraveled. This is a mesmerizing tale because of the emotional connection between the mother and daughter and the pull that I felt to find out what actually made Olivia fall. There are some false clues along the way, and the concluding was absolutely heart-wrenching. The two points of view are Abi and Olivia and this style made the book feel more authentic. The action was fast-paced, and this was one of the best suspense books that I have read recently. Readers of domestic suspense will want to set aside plenty of time to read this book in one sitting because you won’t be able to put it down.

Christina McDonald’s debut novel, The Night Olivia Fell has all of the “feels” for the reader! No parent wants to hear the phone ringing in the middle of the night. Olivia’s mom answers the phone and the hospital tells her that Olivia has been in an accident. From here the story alternates between The voices of Olivia starting a few months before the accident and her mom, Abigail, moving forward from when Olivia arrives at the hospital and her mother trying to solve what happened to cause the accident. This novel is gut wrenching! Thank you NetGalley for this Arc in exchange for an honest review.

Huh?! Did I read the same book as everyone else?

I am not going to go into great detail critiquing what didn’t work for me, but I will say I couldn’t look past the following: predictable plot, stilted dialogue, cliched characters, juvenile writing, and plot holes abound. I grew sick of constantly being told what happened vs. being able to see what happened.

I bumped up my rating for the ending--the emotion shined through and felt more natural than the rest of the book.

I think I am the only person who didn’t love this book, so feel to ignore my review and enjoy for yourself.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Gallery Books in exchange for an honest review.

I finished up The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald, a couple days before the publication date! Thank you to netgalley and Threshold, Pocket and Gallery books for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book, it was a very powerful story. When Abi gets a call in the middle of the night and rushes to the hospital to her 17 year old daughter it starts as a nightmare to any parent. Olivia has fallen off a bridge and suffered severe injuries. Her daughter is braindead, but unknown to her mother Olivia is pregnant....
How did this happen? Why was she at the bridge and who did it are questions swirling in her mothers head!?

The story switches perspectives of the story from her mother to back when Olivia was alive and well. It starts to give perspective into Olivia's life and maybe who had the motive to do something to Olivia. As Abi starts noticing handprints on her daughter, she tells the police she does not think it was an accident. To Abi's horror the police are not keen on the investigation so Abi starts investigating herself.... I couldn't put this down until I found out what happened.

I see where people are saying this book leans toward a YA novel, but I love YA novels and I loved the mystery behind this story. Thank you again for the read! I loved it!

You know how sometimes you need several adult beverages to help you get through an incredibly boring book? The Night Olivia fell is the exact opposite of that. I completely ignored my glass of wine while reading this because I was too engrossed in the book!

Plot info/description: Seventeen year-old Olivia had a full and happy life. She did well in school, competed on the swim team, and had a loving boyfriend. But she was harboring secrets. The night of her neighbor's BBQ party, she "fell" off the local bridge and is declared brain dead. Not only that, but the only reason she is on life support and being kept alive is because she is pregnant. Olivia's mother, Abi, notices dark bruises on Olivia's wrists and believes this was no accident. If the police refuse to investigate, she will do it herself to bring Olivia to justice. She'll do whatever it takes to find the truth, even if that means learning her daughter's other well-kept and shocking secrets.

The plot of this novel is different than a typical mystery, and the description grabbed me right away. You should like this book if you like mysteries, detective work, and parental vigilante justice.
Additionally, I enjoyed the writing style. The story is told from Abi's perspective after the accident, and from Olivia's before. While switching between characters is often seen in novels, it is not often seen from both adult and adolescent perspectives.

Pros: kept me hooked and turning pages. Evoked all sorts of emotions, and by the end, I had tears flowing.
Writing style and prose- descriptive, accurate portrayal of both adult and teenage perspectives and personalities. No use of overly complicated jargon just to sound sophisticated, which helped make it a quick read. Switching between the two main characters left me wanting more at the end of each chapter. I didn't want to put the book down so I could know what happened next and what the characters were thinking at each stage of the story.
Character development- I liked the growth of both Olivia and Abi throughout the novel. I could see the shift happening in both of them as the story progressed.

Trigger warnings: loss, parent abandonment

Rating: 4/5

The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald Book Review
A brain dead teenager with a secret pregnancy & a whodunit element? Initially, I'm skeptical if this story matter is for me, but I dove in head first after glowing reviews from Kailey, Jenny & Amy. I'm so glad I did.
A Somber but Thrilling Story
Honestly, this is a very sad story & a dire situation. Brilliantly, Christina McDonald writes this dramatic suspense novel while balancing the raw sadness that's at hand. While the heart of the story is incredibly emotional, readers do not lack the element of suspense.

There are definitely some twists & turns in this story & all of them are warranted. Christina isn't making readers go down unnecessary rabbit holes. Rather we come along with a mother doing whatever it takes to find out the truth.

I have to describe this story as heavy & I don't mean in a negative way. Certainly, there are some novels you breeze through while others hang around in my soul for a while. There is no doubt, The Night Olivia Fell leaves an indelible mark. In the end, I cried all the ugly tears. Not even kidding, a couple of times I gasped for air. Days later, I'm still thinking about this read & reliving the story.
THE VERDICT
I am Really Into This book. Christina McDonald pulls off something very special with The Night Olivia Fell. She writes an emotional & suspenseful novel that undoubtedly makes every parent & child reflect on choices, secrets & intentions.

Special thanks to Christina McDonald, Gallery Books & NetGalley for providing our copy in exchange for an honest & fair review.

Thanks go to NetGalley and Gallery Publishing for the opportunity to read an advance copy of The Night Olivia Fell in exchange for my honest review.

The book description likens this book to Big Little Lies. I would say that comparison is a stretch. As I read The Night Olivia Fell, I found myself two different times double checking that this is an adult book, not YA. It comes across more as YA to me--not as much character development as I would have liked.

I was debating whether to give a 2 or 3 rating, until I reached the final 10% of the book. I wish the rest of the story had been as well-written as this section. I found myself getting teary eyed, unable to decide whether from joy or sadness.

Overall, it's worth checking out for the beautiful ending.

4.5 stars for Christina McDonald's The Night Olivia Fell; This was a well written mystery with well developed characters and I was totally engaged with reading this book. I consider it a novel of domestic suspense that I think that the author has done an excellent job writing. I hope she writes many more books - I will love reading them. Thank you #netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to receive an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

How would you cope if your teenaged daughter had an accident which left her brain dead but she was also pregnant?

In The Night Olivia Fell, the mother, Abi, has to deal with the impending death of her daughter, Olivia, and the birth of her grandchild. Abi also believes that someone pushed Olivia off of the bridge.

The police seem to give her the cold shoulder and don’t follow up on any leads. So Abi does what any mother would want to do – she investigates the case herself. She has a police officer from a different town help her search for answers.

This mother and daughter had some pretty big secrets that they reveal to each other. Abi never told Olivia who her father was. Olivia did some research on her own before she fell and found out her father’s identity.

Olivia never told her mother that she was pregnant or who the father of the father of the baby was.

Although the book definitely has some sad moments, the sadness was balanced with the search for the truth. I would recommend The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald especially if the reader likes mysteries.

I received this ebook from NetGalley in exchange for doing a review. All opinions are my own. Obviously.

The Night Olivia Fell begins with a scenario no one wants to imagine- Abi Knight gets a phone call from the local hospital stating that her daughter, Olivia is there due to being in a horrible accident. Upon arriving, Abi learns that her beautiful, smart, and level-headed daughter is not only brain dead, but also pregnant. From there, we get alternating perspectives being Abi and Olivia in the months leading up to her accident. Abi notices bruising on Olivia's wrists, and right away in convinced this was no accident. When the police are making slow progress and not providing answers, Abi takes matters into her own hands and will not stop until she finds out what really happened to Olivia.
There are a lot of things I loved about this book, and only have a few small complaints. Overall, I felt the characters were well-developed and while they're not all necessarily likable, they're real. This also contributed to the author doing a good job of keeping the reader guessing who was really involved with Olivia's accident until the very end. There is more to this book than the typical suspense story; I really started to relate to Abi and Olivia and felt invested in what happened to them.
Something I didn't like was the language in Olivia's chapters- trying to use teenage slang so much made me cringe- think "it's gonna be lit!", and saying "like", every other word.
Overall, this was a quick and engaging read- 4/5 stars!!

A middle of the night phone call is never a good thing. When Abi’s phone rings late one night, she finds herself living her worst nightmare. Her teenage daughter, Olivia, has been in an accident rendering her braindead. As Abi attempts to come to terms with this news, she is slammed with something else- Olivia is pregnant.

Now, as doctors try to keep Olivia’s body alive long enough to save the baby, Abi tries to seek justice for Olivia, knowing that this “accident” was intentional. But when the authorities try to sweep the glaring evidence under the rug, Abi takes matters into her own hands and dredges up someone from her past. Will Abi be able to find peace with the night Olivia fell?

I highly recommend this book, however, I highly recommend not reading this book if you are pregnant. But once your hormone levels even out- snatch this one up! The Night Olivia Fell is so much more than a suspense filled read. It is a story of a mother’s love, a daughter’s journey of self-discovery, and the hush-hush power politics can hold over truth. McDonald weaves a tale that is so believable, I found it hard to compose myself the entire final chapter. Between the foreshadowing of Abi’s experiences to the flashbacks Olivia’s perspective tells, it is hard to put this book down.

Not only does McDonald shed light on the unrequited mother’s love, but she also brings to light the importance of looking for the warning signs of being bullied that a child so often tries to cover up. Couple that with the hardships of a single mother and teenage daughter seeking to understand her past, and this book hits on social issues that will pull at your heartstrings and have you nodding your head in solidarity. Sure to be one of the top 2019 reads, don’t miss out on this one.

The Night Olivia Fell
*Rating - 3.5 stars

I had heard good things about this book, so I was excited to be able to read it to see what I thought. While I enjoyed the story, it didn't fully rise above for me. It came close, but I think I wanted a more brilliant ending.

What I liked:
I really enjoyed the pace of the story. Bouncing back and forth from Abi's point of view and Olivia's worked really well for me. I actually really enjoyed seeing each character's view on events. I wish there had been even more times where Abi's memory of an event was compared to Olivia's memory of an event - like their memories of Olivia's last morning. I found this interplay of perceptions fascinating.

What I didn't like:
Why are the months not capitalized at the beginning of each chapter? This really, really annoyed me. There is no good reason not to use correct grammar.

The suspense was never truly prolonged. At one point, suspicions are raised about Anthony. Could it be him? But instead of savoring this paranoia for a little while, he is almost immediately dismissed as a suspect. Much could be said for many of the characters - evidence is found, but before the chapter is over, the suspicions are resolved.

Finding out whodunit really didn't interest me. It felt like that with the characters laid out as they were, their could have been even more of a clever ending.

Conclusion:
All in all, though the book is a domestic suspense, it wasn't really the suspense that hooked me. Instead it was the dynamics of the mother and daughter that I enjoyed most. Seeing how Olivia's friends described Olivia's feelings about her mother versus her actual feelings. The mystery piqued my curiosity and served to move the plot forward, but didn't keep me on the edge of my seat.

WOW. I did not expect this book to get to me so much - I can't remember the last time a book made me cry until today. I actually got halfway through and was disappointed because I thought I had figured it out; I was wrong.
This book tells the sad, sad story of a teenager who was brain-dead after falling (being pushed? jumping? you'll have to read to find out) off a bridge, and the agony her mother goes through in the months after. It really pulled on my heartstrings and also provided a solid suspenseful storyline.
This is the author's first book, and I hope she writes more!
Thank you to the publisher for an ARC through Netgalley.

I finished up The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald this morning. Thank you to @netgalley and Threshold, Pocket and Gallery books for the #advancedreaderscopy. I really enjoyed this book, it was a very powerful story. To sum it up, Abi (the mom) gets a call in the middle of the night and rushes to the hospital where her 17 year old daughter Olivia has been taken. Olivia fell from a bridge, and has suffered a traumatic brain injury resulting in her becoming brain dead. Doctors tell Abi that they cannot remove Olivia from life support due to her condition - she is pregnant, which was unknown to Abi. And so the story goes on... what happened to Olivia? Abi finds on her daughters wrists bruises in the shape of hand prints... indicating she wasn’t alone when she fell and Abi believes she was pushed. She informs police, but they are told not to investigate and it was “an accident”... so Abi begins to try to track down what really happened. The book goes back and forth between narratives - Abi’s point of view, and then Olivia’s point of view (going six months back prior to the fall, and working up to the moment Olivia fell). Enter several characters that are somehow involved in the story, and you will wonder who did this to Olivia and what was the motive. I loved this book because not only was it powerful and sad, but it made me keep wondering who was guilty and then changing my mind. I give it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5, and I would say the only criticism I have is that sometimes the dialog between Olivia and her friends was a little YA-ish. Otherwise, this book is excellent and the ending will completely break your heart.

4.5 stars for Christina McDonald's The Night Olivia Feel. This novel is a have your tissues handy, gut-wrenching story with a relatable storyline and characters. Single mom Abi receives a call that no parent ever wants to receive there's been an accident and her 17-year-old daughter Olivia has been involved. A huge thank you to Netgalley and Ms. McDonald for the opportunity to have an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

If you liked Reconstructing Amelia, you will like this one! This book got me out of my book slump, yay!
It’s about a single mom with a past she wanted to keep in the past, and her teenage daughter who kept digging to uncover the truth. Sometimes things are better kept in the past, and her daughter learns that lesson. The mystery of the story was who then killed her (the pregnant teenage daughter). It was fairly predictable, but still a good read.

Did she fall or was she pushed? The police believe she fell, but Abi, Olivia's mother, is convinced there's more to it than that. Told in alternating voices of Abi and the unfortunate Olivia, the author leads us back and forth between the present and the events leading up to the night that Olivia's life changed dramatically.

The novel was suspenseful, and had a strong storyline for a first novel. I guessed the ending, but it was truly only a guess, as the author threw in enough teasers that I did consistently wonder if my intuition was right. Was it the boyfriend or the other boyfriend? The mysterious political figure, or the best friend? Or the surprise look-alike that Olivia meets? And really, where did Anthony come from? So many choices of potential baddies! And was she even really pushed at all?

So...a decent storyline and suspense, but how about overall thoughts? The book was adequate, but not great. The excessive use of painfully awkward similes and metaphors was a turn-off. It was if the author was constantly reaching for descriptive phrases to paint a picture for the reader. I'm all about good, strong metaphors and personification. In this case, some of the descriptions were spot on, and at other times they were cringe-worthy. Sometimes less is more. A lot less would have been much more, in this case. However, this is a debut novel, so I don't want to judge harshly. I enjoyed the story well enough and even though it wasn't perfectly written, it kept me interested. I would read the next thing the author writes, if only to see if she tones down the descriptive phrases. She already has a handle on the basics of good story-telling.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 3 stars.

This was a quick read that I basically read in one setting, and it was excellent. Abi gets a phone call in the night, that frankly no parent ever wants to get - something has happened to her only daughter Olivia and she must come to the hospital immediately. When she gets there, she learns that Olivia has fallen off a bridge in a horrific accident, and not only is she brain dead, she is pregnant. Olivia must be kept alive until the baby is born, but there is no hope that she will ever wake again. Could you imagine? I could not. So, we know that this is not the end of the story, or we would have no book. Abi notices a few things that are suspicious, and immediately determines this was not an accident, and sets out to find the real story of what happened that night. Problem is, she seems to be the only one who believes there is more to the story, making this difficult and frustrating. Many secrets from Abi's past are uncovered, some that even she was unaware of...

I LOVED this book, and it kept me guessing until the end. It was very well done, and I liked that the reader was kept in the dark for a while, so that we were learning things as Abi was in some regards. I came to love this family, despite their flaws, and was hoping for a miracle at the end. I was tearing up at the end, which is pretty rare for a thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for an electronic ARC of this book to review. All opinions above are my own. Pub date is 2/5/2019. I highly recommend this one!!

Abi's daughter, Olivia, has had a tragic accident and because of the damage to her brain she can't be saved. A surprise to Abi, Olivia is pregnant. The doctors plan to keep Olivia on life support in hopes that they can save the baby. Abi is desperate to find out what really happened to her daughter and prove it wasn't an accident. The book alternates between Abi's search for answers and Olivia's past before the accident. This book explores a mother's grief, but also shows the angst and confusion of being a teenager. Olivia's mystery will draw readers in and keep them guessing as new lies and secrets are revealed.