I really enjoyed this book and the narrative of growing up in the 90’s. I enjoyed the writing style, and having since read an article about the author’s motivations for writing, I can see how passion for her subject shows in the writing

my book of 2019. A great "coming of age" tale, with sensitive and realistic characters. Felt like a very modern-day love story

I am in charge of the senior library and work with a group of Reading Ambassadors from 16-18 to ensure that our boarding school library is modernised and meets the need of both our senior students and staff. It has been great to have the chance to talk about these books with our seniors and discuss what they want and need on their shelves. I was drawn to his book because I thought it would be something different from the usual school library fare and draw the students in with a tempting storyline and lots to discuss. 
This book was a really enjoyable read with strong characters and a real sense of time and place. I enjoyed the ways that it maintained a cracking pace that kept me turning its pages and ensured that I had much to discuss with them after finishing. It was not only a lively and enjoyable novel but had lots of contemporary themes for our book group to pick up and spend hours discussing too.
I think it's important to choose books that interest as well as challenge our students and I can see this book being very popular with students and staff alike; this will be an excellent purchase as it has everything that we look for in a great read - a tempting premise, fantastic characters and a plot that keeps you gripped until you close its final page.

I’m not sure what I expected to get from a book about a 17 year old basketball player living in 1990’s New York, but I do enjoy a trip out of my historical fiction comfort zone and it was well repaid. My notebook is full of life affirming quotes from Czapnik’s beautiful and insightful writing. 

We follow the main character, Lucy Adler, through a summer of her life as finds her identity and place in society as a woman who doesn’t conform to female stereotypes. She also suffers the pain of unrequited love from fellow player Percy (and the joy which comes from getting over it) and I loved her friendship with the fearless and unapologetic Lex.

There are quite a few paragraphs describing playing basketball but don’t let that put you off if it isn’t something you find interesting. They describe the joy which can be derived from the game so evocatively it doesn’t matter how you feel about it.

I would recommend this book to anyone. It’s an incredibly assured debut and I look forward to reading more of Czapnik’s work.

Full review to be published at narritivemuse.co 

The Falconer is a simple story about first loves, curiosity and learning yourself. Czapnik does a wonderful job of capturing not only the way attraction can captivate youth, but how the process of considering another person can lead us to reflect on ourselves and where we are going, the emotion that arises from this, and the tangle that can seem all-engulfing.  The is a novel full of feeling, but above all this book brought me back to the sweet confusion of not knowing.

The falconer is a great coming of age novel, that reminded me of a modern Catcher in the Rye (if Holden was a teenage girl growing up in the 90s). 
I do think that I would've enjoyed it more if I was younger than I am now, but it was still a very well-written and engaging novel, and it wouldn't surprise me if it became one of teenager's must-reads

The Falconer is an exquisite novel that dares to be different. There is such a strong sense of identity in this book. The main character Lucy Adler is confident in who she is and where she comes from. Her confidence and attitude create such a flawless ease in the writing and makes it an incredibly enjoyable read. The ease at which she approaches, sport and life, eases us into her life and makes her such a likeable character. She owns the novel and her stage. The writing is dynamite and an instagram dream, every word is quotable and paints its own picture, merged together into a novel and it’s perfect coming of age novel. 

The book explores raw emotion, of first touch, and beyond. It feels authentic, and yet the way the character exists feels dream like, its nostalgic setting of the early 90s gives the book the perfect platform to explore distraction and dissect the mind of the 17-year-old lead. She owns her stage and we bask in the glory on every single page. An exceptional novel.

A book I wish I’d been able to read in my late teens.  Loved it. Czapnik has described perfectly how it feels to be a woman who doesn’t identify with any of society’s narrow conceptions of femininity. Her protagonist is relatable but also has the type of teenage omnipotence that makes you care less about what other people think about you.

Where was this book when I was a teenager? An absorbing coming-of-age story set in New York in the early 90s. Czapnik perfectly captures the feeling of unrequited attraction, female friendship, being seen as 'not-feminine-enough' and disappointment at the brink of adulthood.

Probably closer to a 4.5 stars.
I had a hard time picking it up at first, but I blame the format, I struggle a bit with ebooks, I'm sure had I had the physical copy, I would have flown through it. However, this book was really inspiring for me and I have lots of highlights and wonderful quotes I'm unlikely to forget.
One of my favorite things about it are the existencialist references thoughout the whole book, quoting De Bevoir or mentioning Sartre and Camus, but that's because I'm really fond of the French existencialists.
If I had to stand out only one thing though, that would be the writing style, I fell in love with it and I'm honestly hoping for more books by this author.
I also really loved the constant feminist points of view and specially because it's set in the '90s, it really shows how the movement was and how it influenced young women back then. I really appreciate the perspective.

Now, some of my favorite quotes, so you can see for yourselves what I'm talking about:
" All people do this when they look in the mirror - they put on their mirror face. It's funny to watch, the way people change themselves."
"Maybe there's something quietly revolutionary in not longing to be beautiful."
"I find myself unstuck again, floating in the netherworld of my own internal universe."

Definitely a new angle, a fresh coming of age story, one I will not forget.

There's something so life changing about being seventeen. Being both knowledgeable and naïve. Seeing the world as both beautiful and utterly screwed up. 

The Falconer follows a year in the life of seventeen year old Lucy as she comes of age in 1993/4 in New York. I loved how Lucy was super smart and incisive about social issues but was pretty much a hopeless wreck when it came to figuring out her heart. It's that juxtaposition of knowledge and innocence that makes this a captivating read. 

Lucy is incredibly relatable and her story eminently readable. To me her voice felt authentic. I believed in her and rooted for her to make sense of life. Among the issues affecting her was her unrequited love for her best friend Percy and seeing her navigate this romantic mine-field really called to mind my own feelings and emotions from my teenage years. But Lucy's true love was basketball. And it was through this that as a reader I really engaged with her story and her struggles to be taken seriously as a female in the very male dominated sport's environment of the asphalt street courts of New York City. 

An incredibly enjoyable coming of age tale that meandered at times but always felt honest and true. 

Four stars. 

*An e-copy of this book was kindly provided to me by the publisher, Faber and Faber, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

This book made so many interesting points, and I found myself interested in it from beginning to end.  Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to read it!

Lucy Adler is a seventeen-year-old who loves basketball. And she’s talented, often outshining and out muscling those she plays against. She’s at home on the asphalt public courts of NYC, either playing as part of a team, with and against a group of boys, or one-on-one with her friend (and crush) Percy. She loves her city but she’ll most likely leave it soon to attend college and wonders whether she’ll love it from afar as much as she does right here and now. 

This is a coming of age tale in which we witness this half-Jewish, half- Italian teenager wrestle with thoughts of her longing for Percy - to him she’s perceived as a friend not someone with whom he considers acts of a carnal nature – and her own ‘outsider’ status, as a non-girly girl with few female friends. 

The atmosphere of New York in the 1990’s and the character of angst-ridden Lucy are well drawn here. I found myself engaged in Lucy’s struggles and really wanted her to work through her infatuation for Percy. I also found Lucy’s internal and external voice to be persuasive and convincing. There are a few sections I found somewhat rambling and out of place but on the whole I found it to be an entertaining and thought provoking story.

Czapnik has written a great book where she looks at females and how we need to feel accepted by our peers and if we are different to other people that it’s ok. 
Great read. 
Thank you to both NetGalley and Faber & Faber Ltd for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest unbiased review

In telling the story of one particular girl from a particular place and time, Czapnik probes the eternal challenges of growing up as female: conformity and acceptance by one's peer group while staying true to oneself; crushes on boys and the disappointment of rejection; concerns about one's attractiveness; what one gives up for love. In the end, is the world chaotic and without order, or is joy and hope achievable?

God, this book is brilliant. A coming of age story with a bright, fearless narrator,  Lucy who, I guarantee, you will fall in love with.  Often the best player on the public basketball courts, she is in love with the feeling playing ball gives her. She is also in love with her fellow player and best friend Percy who doesn’t see her like that. Set in 90’s New York, Lucy looks at and thinks about everything: how to be a girl who doesn’t look  like the girls the boys like; what’s happening to the city she loves (gentrification is everywhere); friendship (there’s Percy, but there's also Alexis, a fellow outsider at school, and her cousin Violet, trying to hang on to her artist life without making money); and class (nihilistic Percy comes from a dysfunctional but very privileged family). 1990’s New York comes to life in Dana Czapnik’s hands as Lucy moves through it with familiarity and confidence, making me nostalgic for a place I didn’t know. This book already feels like a classic - I recommend it unreservedly.

Dana Czapnik’s first novel, ‘The Falconer’, focuses on basketball-obsessed teenager Lucy and her familial, would-be romantic, and peer relationships over one hot summer in 1993.  Set in New York, this is a coming of age story that is likely to best appeal to readers of the central character’s age, fitting most comfortably under the Young Adult banner, perhaps because it lacks the perspective of the almost intangible older and wiser presence felt in classics such as ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J D Salinger and ‘Cat’s Eye’ by Margaret Atwood, which appeal to people of all ages.
‘The Falconer’ includes a lot of detail about the finer points of basketball and, whilst this shouldn’t alienate those who have little or no understanding of a particular sport (I’m thinking of the wonderful ‘The Art of Fielding’ by Chad Harbach which involves plenty of baseball material), I did find myself skimming several sections about basketball because it added very little to my understanding of Lucy’s character.
Whilst we can all sympathise with unwise teenage romances, it is difficult to remain patient over Lucy’s inability to see Percy (what a name!) for whom he really is – a spoilt, arrogant, insensitive creep.  Presented as an intelligent, independent, open-minded person, Lucy does come to accept that ‘not everyone you love has to love you back’.  However, that she appears moved by the present he gives her at the end of the novel, implying that he understands that she is her own person, is nothing short of insulting to all young women navigating their teenage years.  Oh, so a boy has to let me know this …!
The novel’s often lyrical style may have developed through Czapnik’s desire to capture the voice of a thoughtful, sensitive girl as she goes about the everyday, travelling the city, meeting friends, noticing unremarkable events.  However, perhaps intentionally, the number of descriptions that come across as unauthentic, such as a description of her feelings for Percy as ‘…the world rains arrows and honey whenever he’s near me.  Painful and sweet.’ and ‘His face is a secret handshake.  I fall in love with him for a second. Just a second.  That’s all it is.’ about a stranger on a subway do not add to the enjoyment of this novel.  That Czapnik can write is not in dispute.  However, I’m not sure to which readership and why this novel will really appeal in the long run.
My thanks to NetGalley and Faber & Faber for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

www.everythingmustbereviewed.com

REVIEW | The Falconer by Dana Czapnik. Published by Faber, 2019
By Charlie Allen, editor @EMBR2018

The phrase ‘coming-of-age’ is a strange one. It suggests that age, a synonym for maturity when embedded in the right place among these particular words, is something to ‘come to’: a point of arrival. But when we look at the great coming-of-age novels – Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Hesse’s Beneath the Wheel, Plath’s The Bell Jar – it’s clear this arrival point is really non-existent, unless it’s death. Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, another classic of the genre, ends with a decision to depart. Maybe that can that be counted as a ‘coming-of-age’ of sorts, but probably not.

Of course, the typical coming-of-age protagonist learns things. There is normally plenty of contemplation. What’s crucial is that what the typical protagonist does learn seems important and profound, at least to them – and, sometimes, to the reader. We read these novels never fully knowing which adolescent exhortations to be persuaded by and which to reject. In Catcher in the Rye, we learn that the phoniest of the ‘phoneys’ might actually be Holden Caulfield himself. But that doesn’t stop us rising up and joining him in rebellion every now and again, revelling in his twinned hatred of adults and superficiality. Most readers ultimately rebel against him and his worldview – but there are moments throughout when we are all utterly convinced of humanity’s dreary phoniness. In the final pages of Portrait of the Artist, the reader is enthralled by the poetic loftiness of Dedalus’ language. But the language is often absurd. A girl’s legs are described as delicate as a ‘crane’s’. Her breast is ‘of some dark plumaged dove’. Joyce is mocking his younger self.

*

The Falconer gives us a year-long cross-section of the life of Lucy, a brilliant basketball player in her final year of high school. She wants to go to college to study astronomy, and she hopes to use her talent and skill to get in somewhere good. Her grades aren’t perfect, so the dreary voices of adulthood attempt to undermine her confidence and point her towards less ambitious targets. She has a crush, a bohemian sister and an ambivalence towards, among other things, New York. So, love, family and home are all themes. They’re all approached with terrific nuance, which is a remarkable achievement for a short novel (and a debut one). 

Like Salinger and Joyce, Czapnik has her narrator test the boundaries between awkwardly unprofound and strikingly insightful. Some of the narrator’s musings seem banal. ‘Is there anything more tragic than being boring?’ Lucy asks the reader. Also: ‘nothing bad ever happens in postcards’ and ‘That’s what a job is: raking a room full of dirt’. We half-sigh and half-relate when hearing these truisms.  

New York’s terrible brilliance is one of the other things we first notice in the novel. There’s a wonderful song by LCD Sound System about the strange oppressiveness of that particular city. A skeletal chord progression pulses from a piano and the vocalist whines ‘New York, I love you, but you’re bringing me down/Our records all show/You are filthy but fine’. An effective lyric, self-consciously capitalising on an old trope about the paradox of urban living.  There are echoes of this lyric in Lucy’s realisation, towards the beginning of the novel, that ‘the sunset today [in New York] is not like the sunset in prehistoric or pre-industrial times. It’s a man-made thing. It’s the pollution that gives it its colours, because of all the aerosols in the air’. There’s pollution here certainly, but also affection.


There’s pollution here certainly, but also affection.

Although the narrator is intelligent and refreshingly compassionate, the novel’s fun comes from its dynamism, not from its contemplation. The opening is all basketball and New York, the two things that frame the novel’s exuberant action. There are moments of exquisite, Hart Crane-esque poetry scattered throughout. New York sings: the basketball court is layered with the ‘crystallized exhaust from the West Side Highway’ and ‘New York diamond dust’.  The actual basketball itself is ‘an equidimensional spheroid made of cowhide and filled with nitrogen and oxygen’. This Latinate, scientific-poetic vocabulary contrasts deliciously with the human thrust of sport and competition. It’s hard also not to see the symbolism in the ‘sphere’ filled with ‘nitrogen and oxygen’: basketball is the world and everything in it.

Later when she’s having sex with her lamentable best friend-come-lover-come-spurner, the description of the sexual act is interspersed with her inner commentary on the ice hockey game leaking from the television.  This could be a playful nod to a literary tradition, begot by Ovid, in which sport and sex intersect, the thrill of sexual conquest echoed by the competitive cut-and-thrust of organised competition. The ‘puck’ is travelling around the ‘ice’ with ‘precision’. But, in this episode of The Falconer, it seems more like the narrator is begging for the simplicity of the ice hockey to be folded into the sexual act. Although she claims that basketball is ‘chaos’ theory, with ‘no discernible pattern’, it’s clear that sport is a respite for the narrator: an escape from social anxiety, dislocation and loneliness.  

Percy, the partner, is one of the reasons for her torment. He is beautiful and ‘the world rains arrows and honey’ whenever he’s near Lucy. But his behaviour is lamentable, sometimes laughable. Like her, he oscillates between insightfulness and banality, between wisdom and stupidity. He is a misogynist, but one who has somehow intellectually justified his position to himself. It’s interesting that he seems to know Hamlet so well. Percy embodies a crucial, and now often discussed, attribute of privilege: naivety. Percy does not endure the post-sex shame and self-questioning which Lucy has to endure.  To him, ‘Girls are too emotional about sex… It’s really not that big a deal’. There are complicated ethical inter-personal politics to examine here. To what extent is his naivety his fault? Is it naivety or cruelty? Why should Lucy, the self-assured and intelligent protagonist, have to ask herself whether ‘people will think of me differently if they find out’?? Can we blame Percy’s nihilism of privilege on his emotionally removed family, or on his immaturity? Why does Lucy carry on loving him?

It’s good when novels don’t force us into moral judgement, but instead draw us into thought and self-debate. This novel does that.  There is no arrival, no final destination, no ‘coming-of-age’. Still, it’s definitely a coming-of-age novel, and Lucy is a fictional wonder: funny, irreverent and nearly wise. She’s cool but doesn’t fully know it – like all clever, shy teenagers.

Lucy is a teenage basketball player in New York who is in unrequited love with her best friend, Percy.

I absolutely loved THE FALCONER.  This novel fairly explodes with quote-worthy writing:  Dana Czapnik is an extremely talented author.  I started off by writing out a few  memorable lines on my scratchpad, then I was forced to open a folder on my desktop and I started snipping entire pages - her writing is that good.

This is not just a story about young Lucy,  who is searching for herself and her place in the world.  The FALCONER  is about the choices we  make - and their consequences, the sacrifices required when we choose, for example,  art over security, and the lies we tell ourselves when we ultimately cave in and take that well-paying job so that we can keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies instead.  Lucy learns to value her true friends, and also realizes that life will constantly shuffle people in and out of her life, no matter how much she would prefer to hold on to them and keep things unchanged.

This story takes place in 1993, in New York City., and is told in first person P.O.V. of  Lucy, who  is half Jewish and half Italian  - and  she is definitely not your typical teenager.  She is a basketball prodigy,  in her senior year at a private high school, and she can "trash talk" with the worst of the guys.   And yes,  as her story unfolds, you suspect that she has a secret crush on her best friend, Percy - who is a stereotypical rich, good-looking  playboy;  and yes, you would be right in assuming that things eventually get hot and heavy between them.  But there is no spoiler alert needed here, because this is NOT a standard YA trope-filled novel.  Instead, you continue to read with bated breath and hope that Lucy listens to her older (artist) friends when they tell her  "No one ever loves someone the way people are loved in poetry.  You have to find a more realistic standard-bearer for love, otherwise you're going to spend the rest of your life very disappointed."

I felt like cheering when Lucy finally puts her failed hook-up with Percy behind her and says, "It's a sad day when you finally realize that not everyone you love has to love you back.  It's a lesson I keep on forgetting I've learned before."  And then, further on in the story, comes one of my favorite lines:  "Dear Percy, you will always be my very favorite optical illusion."   

 This novel is full of beautiful gems like this:
"I didn't get a happy ending.  But nothing really tragic or even vaguely sad happened either.  The universe didn't punish me for having sex with a guy I knew was a jerk.  There wasn't a loaded consequence.  Nothing grand or important came of it.  I fell in love with a boy, and he didn't love me back, and that's pretty much the whole story."  
Except, of course, that it is not. The events in this story are  just a small slice out of young Lucy's life:  she is an intelligent, daring and life-embracing girl who chooses to have faith that there is more to life than Percy's nihilistic, anti-establishment philosophies.    There is a bit of Lucy in all of us - and you will be so proud of her when you reach the final paragraph of this really excellent novel.  (I know I had a huge smile on my face at the end!) Beautifully and truthfully written - what more can you ask for?  Do yourself a favor and read this book!