We follow Nessa as she attempting to keep and get her life together after her husband's affair. Family relationships are explored in this fascinating read about truth and lies. I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick and easy read. The characters were well developed and the book kept me engaged throughout.

Highly recommended.

This was a bit of a slow start but then I was enthralled. The language was lovely and the secrets were interesting. When things come to light so long after they happened, it can really impact the future you've built, thinking you left it all behind. A slow burn, for sure, but it still packs a punch and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Art of Falling by Danielle McLaughlin.

Unfortunately, this is a DNF for me. It's quoted to be a "slow burn" of a novel. But being a slow burn takes a balance of slow pace with a hot undercurrent that this just didn't have. I was turned off by the premise very quickly, compounded by the lack of any life or spark in the dialogue or story.

Betrayal on all fronts. A wife dealing with a husband’s infidelity. A wife with secrets of her own , which have surfaced and refuse to be dispelled. A daughter who’s first infatuation could ruin her mother’s chance for the job of a lifetime. All these elements make for a whale of a tale. Happy reading.

I found this to be a very compelling read. The eye into the art world is interesting. The relationship between the artist's daughter and wife were not the main focus of the novel, but I loved the interplay between them.

This is what I'd call a "quiet but captivating" novel. The beautiful prose pulls you right in, and before you know it you can't put it down. What an absolutely gorgeous novel -- one of my favorites of the year for sure!

DNF - did not finish. I was intrigued by this one but, I could not connect with the writing and storyline so I decided to put this one down. Thank you, publisher and netgalley for the chance to check this out!

The Art of Falling by Danielle McLaughlin hits an interesting mix of being maybe too much of a good thing. It's both a bit of a mystery when a sculpture thought to be made by a famous artist has its origin questioned, and a domestic drama with many secrets and lies revealed amongst the relationships between the central cast of characters.

That said, McLaughlin is a superb writer and many readers will enjoy this novel for its many twists and turns.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

this book was masterfully written, really complex, and i loved how important the characters played a part in driving the story. It was immersive and the worldbuilding was exceptional!!

As an art lover and amateur art historian, I mostly enjoyed this book. The history and discovery around the sculpture were gripping and kept me turning the page. The build-up was done very well. The only problem I had was that the characters fell a bit flat. I found it difficult to figure out what kind of person Nessa was and disagreed with most of her actions and opinions regarding her marriage and parenting. It couldn't be sympathetic towards her, and some of the drama within her family felt a bit like a Lifetime movie. Perhaps the characters and their relationships could have been developed a bit more. However, the writing was amazing. The descriptions were lovely and vivid. I will be recommending this book to anyone who loves a good art mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I did not enjoy this book. It was very slow paced and made worse because the book did not make me curious as to the artist and history of his Chalk sculpture. On top of that, I had no patience with the husbands infidelity, the daughter that thought her father walked on air, nor Nessa’s indecisiveness about forgiving her husband.

I started out loving this but it did eventually start to fall in my estimation. I adored McLaughlin’s writing: it’s clear-eyed and pacy and this is, on the whole, a fairly enjoyable read. I’m also a sucker for anything having to do with art or art history or museums, so I loved the plot thread involving a woman turning up out of nowhere and claiming to have been responsible for a sculpture supposed to have been created by the late, famous artist Robert Locke.

Where I felt this novel fell short of its potential was in its domestic storyline: it follows art historian Nessa’s failing marriage (her husband has recently cheated on her and they’re trying to get past it for the sake of their teenage daughter), and it also introduces a figure from Nessa’s past who holds a secret about her. For one thing, the two threads (Nessa’s work at the museum and her home life) don’t dovetail in a way that I find satisfying or realistic (Luke’s hyperfixation on the statue was something I found almost absurd in how it was so transparently shoehorned in there). And for another thing, the secret about Nessa’s past revealed something that shone rather a different light on her husband’s cheating, which I felt could have added so much depth and complexity to that dynamic but which instead ended up feeling rather underexplored.

On the whole this wasn’t bad but I also don’t think it quite showcases what Danielle McLaughlin is capable of.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

Drama. This story has lots of it. Lies, secrets, family, friends, repercussions, and consequences. It is a well written, multilayered book.
Many thanks to Random House Publishing and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Published by Random House on January 5, 2021

The Art of Falling is a domestic drama mixed with an art drama. The domestic drama involves spouses who have been dishonest with each other, although the wife’s transgression involves a kept secret she arguably had no duty to reveal. Just as their strained marriage seems to be mending, their teenage daughter takes an interest in an older boy whose actions cause mild tension in the family dynamic. Like most domestic dramas, the family’s mundane issues are likely to be of more interest to the participants than to outsiders. Readers who are not fans of generic soap opera plots are likely to be among the outsiders who don’t care much about this family’s dysfunctions.

The art drama is more interesting. It involves a sculpture that (according to one theory) was made from a porous stone so that it would decay with time. Nessa McCormack is negotiating on behalf of a gallery to acquire the Chalk Sculpture from the family of its creator. Robert Locke has been dead for nearly twenty years, but Nessa has done her due diligence by researching his life and art, including interviews with Locke’s daughter, Loretta. The sculpture is believed to be of Locke’s pregnant wife, modeled on a photo of her taken sixteen years before the sculpture was created. Locke’s wife is still alive, but Loretta keeps her sheltered from the world, ostensibly because of her delicate health.

Nessa is surprised when a woman who didn’t come up in her research suddenly claims to have helped with the Chalk Sculpture’s creation. The woman, Melanie Doerr, would like some credit for the role she played. She is both persistent and annoying as she presses her claims. Loretta tells Nessa that she knows nothing about Melanie, but as events unfold, the reader will suspect that Melanie, while possibly daft, might be telling some version of the truth and that Loretta might be shading it, if not telling outright lies.

Most of the characters in The Art of Falling have been untruthful at some point. Sorting out the lies from the truth is a challenge. Did Melanie create the Chalk Sculpture, perhaps while sleeping with Locke? Did Stuart Harkin have just one affair (as he told Nessa, referring to his affair with her) or multiple affairs, as he apparently confessed to his wife Amy. Or was Amy lying when she recorded those affairs in the diary that nobody knew she kept?

Amy's son Luke reads the diary and suspects that Nessa was the cause of his mother’s suicide, fueling the soap operatic nature of the plot. Nessa frets that Luke will reveal the truth to her daughter Jessica when she isn’t fretting that Jessica will sleep with Luke. The affair occurred before Nessa’s marriage to her husband Philip, but her own transgression doesn’t deter her from judging Philip for having his own affair with Cora Wilson (whose daughter Mandy happens to be Jessica’s best friend). That affair isn’t surprising because it is the duty of a husband in a domestic drama to have an affair so he can complain that his wife never lets him forget what a rogue he is.

The Art of Falling is the kind of novel in which characters make a mess of their lives, burst into tears, and spend the rest of the book wallowing in their self-inflicted misery. Stories of that nature tend to overwhelm the reader with melodrama. While The Art of Falling doesn’t overwhelm, it repeatedly serves up scenes that are overly familiar, including Jennifer’s trite response to her mother’s parenting: “I hate you. I’m never going to speak to you again. How could you do that to me?” Nessa worries that “I don’t seem to have charge of her anymore” but since Jennifer is 16, what does she expect?

Danielle McLaughlin is a talented prose stylist. She creates characters in satisfying depth, even if the characters in The Art of Falling are unappealing. The mystery of Melanie Doerr’s claimed contribution to the Chalk Sculpture holds the novel together, giving the reader something more interesting to think about than Nessa’s first-world problems. The virtues and faults of The Art of Falling are in equipoise, resulting in a recommendation only for dedicated fans of domestic drama and, perhaps, for readers who are really into stories about art.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Wow. I never quite know what to expect when I hear that a novel is a “slow burn.” This was, indeed, a slow burn but in the best possible of ways.

I liked the book. I thought Nessa was a decent character with every day issues. She had a dry sense of humour and just wanted to have a normal family life and was content with her mundane job. When martial issues , a teenage daughter , a past and problems at work surface we see Nessa struggle . I thought she was pretty rational in approaching these events. We all have secrets and it is important to realize who in our lives should be privy to them. Some secrets are meant to be. This book also discusses the art world but in a simple way. The characters in the book also carried baggage . Some more than others . I also liked the character of Melanie Doerr. Like Nessa she only wanted what was rightfully hers.

I could not connect with this book and had a hard time finishing it. I found some parts of the story kind of scattered, and could not stay connected. I hope to read more from the author because I did like the writing- maybe it was just this story that didn't interest me.

McLaughlin writes lyrically and thoughtfully, but it’s really tough to get past how petty and small the central themes of this book are.

I’m not a fan of domestic drama, particularly when it focuses on cheating spouses, but I had high hopes for the art-based component of this story, which appeared at first to be an intriguing question of authenticity and creative theft.

Unfortunately even that part of the plot was ultimately rooted in domestic squabbles and infidelity, much to my disappointment.

This kind of stuff just feels small and vaguely gross to me, so I struggled to enjoy this book despite McLaughlin’s lovely writing and deft storytelling.

In short, this isn’t a bad book at all (in fact, it’s quite well-crafted). It just wasn’t a good book for me. This has all the bleakness and depressing moral failures of a Tana French novel, but none of the intrigue, mystery, and subtle humor. It also doesn’t help that it’s hard to find a single truly likable character among the cast.

Because the quality of the work is not bad at all, this one will likely sit better with readers who enjoy anatomy of a marriage/infidelity plot lines than it did with me.

The Art of Falling by Danielle McLaughlin is a family drama which takes place in Ireland. Nessa McCormack is a gallery representative who is doing research on the works of a famous deceased sculptor. His wife and daughter are being interviewed by her but are often reluctant and suspicious of her motives. Nessa and her husband are working on reviving their marriage after he has had an affair with a local woman. They are also the parents of a teenage girl who is having a difficult time because of this affair. The novel alternates between Nessa’s work life and her personal life and I found that too much is going on. There are too many characters and some of the goings-on seem unnecessary and overdone. It feels like Nessa is chasing her own tail while trying to please everyone and pleasing no one. However, The Art of Falling is well-written and will be enjoyed by many fans of relationship fiction. Thank you to Random House, NetGalley and the author for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really struggled to stay engaged with this one - I read TWO other books in the time it took me to finish this.

Described as a novel where, "a woman's marriage and career are threatened by an old indiscretion just as she receives the opportunity of a lifetime," I really thought this was going to be some fast-paced, domestic drama, which I usually enjoy, but this did not hit the mark for me.

Nessa is an art curator and working on the legacy of a sculpture of a famous artist, Robert Locke. However, things take a bit of a turn when a woman comes forward and says that she was Locke's student and the sculpture actually belongs to her. Additionally, in her private life, Nessa and her husband are coming to terms with an affair that he has had and trying to get their life back on track. AND THEN, someone from Nessa's past shows up, threatening to unveil a betrayal of her own.

There are so many threads in the plot and so much happening, that I almost felt that not enough attention was giving to any of the storylines, so I couldn't connect with any of the characters, ultimately not really caring all that much about what happened.

What I DID like about the novel, and the storyline that I gravitated towards most was the drama surrounding the sculpture and the questions that arose regarding intellectual ownership and patriarchy in the art world. I think out of everything else that was going on, this was the most interesting, and I only wish the story had delved deeper into it.