This was a very different book than I was expecting. I thought it was be a thriller/page turner but instead it was more of a slow, introspective look at what a traumatic, life changing event does to a person. How every aspect of you changes. While it does that job well, the feeling and thoughts of a middle school girl rang true, the disappointment of expecting one thing and given another fell as a shadow over my enjoyment of what the book truly was. If marketed differently I think wouldn't have disappointed as much.

This story fell flat for me.

The Fall Of Lisa Bellow but Susan Perabo is a fiction, YA, standalone. Due to mention of rape, it may not be appropriate for younger readers.

The excerpt to this book sounded amazing and I was very excited to read it. Lisa Bellow is one of the popular, snobby girls at school. She excels in making the others feel inadequate. One of her classmates is less popular, Meredith Oliver. When they happen to be in the same place at the same time, a robbery takes place and one of the girls is kidnapped. Doesn’t that sound exciting? I thought so too.

In reality, the book is a character study. It revolves around one of the girls’ family and the point of view is shared between the mother and her daughter. The thrilling part of the robbery is only 1 chapter of the book. The rest delves into the feelings of the family and classmates in the aftermath.

The writing is excellent. It was so good, in fact, that I continued to be excited for what could happen right up to the last page…..when nothing happened. I understand that the author was not looking to tell a gruesome tale, I had just hoped for a bit more action. However, if you are looking for a book that explores interesting characters in the wake of a tragedy, then this book is for you.

I give it 2 stars for the wonderful writing. However, I found the story very disappointing.

This was a rather strange but well-written book. It's been billed as a 'psychological thriller' which is too bad, because that definition only serves to make the reader disappointed that it's incorrect. Psychological, yes I guess, thriller, no - not at all. There is suspense - why was Lisa taken and not Meredith? Was it just a staged kidnapping? Was Lisa in on it? Was her Mother's boyfriend the kidnapper? Her absent father? What happened to Lisa? These are the questions that make the book suspenseful - but the story doesn't really ever deal with them!

The characters are very well done and we come to know Meredith, Claire, Mark and Evan well. The story is that of a family dealing with tragedy (with Evan) and a near-miss tragedy with Meredith. Meredith's feelings of being spared from the kidnapping are mixed. She feels both relieved and puzzled that she wasn't taken. With a typical 13-year-old's insecurity, it seems almost a rejection. Meredith slips into a dream world - though the book never identifies it as such. It's up to the reader to decide what is real and what is just in Meredith's mind.

I was very disappointed in the ending. I read the last page and thought 'is this all there is?!!' I felt cheated to have spent the time reading the book and get virtually no resolution to questions. A strange ending to a good book.

Meredith Oliver a totally normal girl, who is more on the smart then the cool site (not implying that you can`t be both) finds herself in a robbery with her nemesis, Lisa Bellow. Thankfully Meredith makes it out alive, but Lisa gets taken by the robber. After this traumatic incident everyone tries to figure out how to deal with this. Nobody knows where Lisa is, she stays missing, and nobody can imagine what exactly happened to Lisa. One mother has to deal with the loss of her child, while Merediths mother has to deal with how her daughter deals with this trauma.


Now everybody has their own way on dealing with something like this, which can be hard to face for the people around, but it is also traumatic for Merediths family, especially her mother, which we thankfully get to know, as this book is told from different perspectives. But also Meredith has different ways of dealing with this and we get to see those to the full extent, which were confusing at times (for me as a reader), but it isn`t bad because that just showed how good Merediths confusion was portrait in that book.


Now while you can think of this book as totally just dealing with trauma, I also saw how Meredith and her family faced a whole new start, how they all approached their situations differently, which made it the perfect book before spring started. (Don`t get me wrong, you can read that at any time of the year, and you totally should because it is good).


This book has so much character development and so many details and yet it was such a fast and intriguing read. At times I was confused yes, but as explained earlier it just shows how well it is written. The topic is heavy and at times I felt although it was fast to read it also dragged me a bit down (which again can be positive considering the topic is well approached, but it also stopped me from going all out on the 5 stars).


The Fall of Lisa Bellow made me think and I honestly needed some days of processing before being able to write a review, but over all it is an absolutely amazing and unique read, therefore I am giving this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

This richly deserves the kudos it has received. Perabo has written a terrific examination of how we cope when there has been a tragedy - survivor's guilt extends in this case past Meredith and into her family. This is a psychological novel in many ways but it's also a character study. Every one of these people - especially Meredith and Clare- feel very real. I understand how some would see Clare as a polarizing individual but in many ways she does fight for her kids, ironically making her much the same as the mean girl Lisa. Thanks to Simon and Shuster for the ARC- this is indeed a must read.

When a tragedy strikes a friend, or even someone we're merely acquainted with, we wonder how that person or family is handling what happened. "I can't imagine what they're going through," we might think, or, sometimes more commonly, "There before the grace of God go I." Susan Perabo's new novel, The Fall of Lisa Bellow , looks at a tragedy through the eyes of a young girl who witnessed it, as well as her family, and illustrates reactions we might not be proud of, but which seem completely understandable in the wake of what occurred.

Meredith Oliver is an eighth grader with marginal self-esteem. She and her two best friends spend their time loathing the "mean girls" of their class—the pretty, popular girls who are the center of everyone's attention, criticize and belittle their classmates, and make many students hope they can avoid the girls' notice. One of the queens of the group, Lisa Bellow, was Meredith's friend in fourth grade, but obviously a lot has changed since then, and although Meredith and Lisa have lockers next to each other, Meredith lives in somewhat-constant fear that Lisa will embarrass her publicly,, relegating her to the bottom of the social strata of middle school.

One day after school Meredith goes to get a soda at a nearby deli before walking home, and Lisa is there, criticizing the sandwich maker. Without warning, a masked man with a gun enters the shop, orders both girls to get on the floor, and demands access to the store's safe. Meredith is calm at first, and helps Lisa deal with what is happening, but it's not too long before she herself begins to panic. The man demands Lisa stand up and he takes her from the store, leaving Meredith behind on the floor.

The Fall of Lisa Bellow looks at how Meredith handles the mixed blessing of being safe and being the one left behind. She vacillates between catatonia and rebellion, throwing her already worried parents further into a tailspin. She even imagines speaking with Lisa, and imagines what is happening to her, even picturing what it might be like if the two of them were abducted together.

Behind the fragility of Meredith's condition, the book also looks at how Claire, Meredith's mother, is handling this close call her daughter experienced. What happens when you realize you can't protect your children from everything out in the world? How can you keep living life as usual when you know there's a chance something might affect your children, something you can't control no matter how hard you try? How do you help your children if they won't tell you what they need, what they're feeling, what they're afraid of? And how do you handle everything else around you—your marriage, your job, your other relationships—when all that matters is what happened?

This is a tremendously thought-provoking book, Perabo pulls you into the story almost immediately. There is tension, there is emotion, there is even a little bit of disgust (perhaps even a bit more than you think), but there are also glimmers of hope.

Where I struggled with this book is that while I understood what might make the characters act the way they did, and certainly sympathized with them, I really didn't like Claire or Meredith's characters very much. Claire's behavior at different times in the book was almost horrifying, and while I realize Meredith was dealing with significant post-traumatic stress, her actions and reactions made her difficult to root for. But as I thought about how this book and these characters made me feel, I realized my reactions might be more true-to-life for observers of a family dealing with such a crisis, and I realized again what a genius storyteller Perabo is.

I didn't love this as much as I thought I would but this is still a very well-written book. If you're unfamiliar with Perabo's work, you owe it to yourself to pick up one of her books. You'll marvel at her words, but also the choices she makes in telling her characters' stories.

The Fall of Lisa Bellow by Susan Perabo
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: March 14, 2017
Length: 352 pages

Single Sentence Summary: This is the story of the “lucky” one: the girl left behind when another is kidnapped.

Primary Characters: Meredith Oliver – A typical 8th grader. Not in the popular crowd, not unpopular, insecure, searching for independence, scared. Claire Oliver – Ferocious mother, wife, dentist, and worrier.

Synopsis: Meredith just wanted a root beer when she stopped into the Deli Barn on her way home from school. Instead, she found herself head to head on the floor with Lisa Bellow, the most popular girl in 8th grade. In short order the robber left, taking Lisa with him, while Meredith slipped into a sort of shock she only woke up from hours later. This is the story of Meredith, the girl left behind. It’s the story of what that trauma did to Meredith, and by extension, what it did to her whole family, especially her mother.

Review: Let’s start by talking about what The Fall of Lisa Bellow is not. It’s not a mystery. It’s not a suspense story. It’s nothing like Room. It’s not about the search for Lisa Bellow or even what happened to her. What Susan Perabo’s novel is, is a tender study of a girl who experienced a huge trauma at a very vulnerable age. She closely examines how such an event might change not only the girl, but also those who love her most.

Perabo used her two central characters, Meredith and Claire, to alternately unfold the story in The Fall of Lisa Bellow. That technique is not unusual, but for her book it was ideal. I thought the author was brilliant at getting into the mindset of both characters. I teach in a middle school, and Meredith rang uncannily true to 8th grade girls. At that age so many girls are trying to spread her wings, but at the same time are afraid of being noticed or looking silly, just like Meredith. She envied the popular kids, and was exploring feelings about boys. After Lisa was taken, Meredith experienced so much guilt. Guilt for not being the one taken. Guilt for not seeing more. Guilt for not liking Lisa. Like most teens, Meredith took her fear and anxiety out on those closest to her. She could be really, really mean to her mother. Anyone who’s had a 13-year old girl knows how real that is.

“As anticipated, her parents were instantly intolerable. Before a single word was spoken, she could see that they were doing their best to appear friendly but parental, caring yet not overbearing. They were failing on nearly every count.”

Claire, a fierce lioness of a mom, was also incredibly real. When another child called her 6-year old son fat, Claire became obsessed with the pain caused to Evan. She got revenge. Unethical, but revenge none-the-less. Don’t we all secretly wish for a little revenge when our kids get hurt? Claire recalls how boring it had been to go to Little League games week after week. I agree! But, Claire was also desperate to help Meredith, who only wanted to push her away. This mother-daughter relationship was so genuine, and when Perabo thrust it into the harsh light of what didn’t happen, the intensity ramped up even more.

“What did people do with their children after they were not kidnapped? How were you supposed to help the girl not taken? There was no group for this. No best practices. Did she even need your help? Or did she just need you to leave her alone?”

I thought The Fall of Lisa Bellow was a beautifully told story about the mind of a teenage girl and family dynamics. I found Meredith harder to know than Claire and that makes sense. Mark and Evan, father and son, played supporting roles and were a little one-dimensional. The book moved at a steady pace that at times I wished was a little quicker. I’ve read of some who didn’t care for the ending of The Fall of Lisa Bellow, but I thought it was perfect. I definitely recommend this book, especially if you’re a mother! Grade: B

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review.

Lisa Bellow is a mean girl. Everybody would like to see her disappear from their lives, especially Meredith Oliver. Until, of course, she does. On a random day in which Meredith decides to treat herself to a root beer from a sandwich shop, she witnesses the sandwich shop being robbed and Lisa Bellow being taken by a man that Meredith has never seen before. Soon, Meredith is asked to be a part of Lisa's old clique and Lisa's mom wants to spend time with her; at first to get information, but then just to serve as a reminder of Lisa. Meredith begins to have flashbacks that morph into imaginings that she was also kidnapped and held in an apartment with Lisa. Will these fantasies help Meredith find Lisa?

This was a beautiful story. Perabo has a unique ability to weave a story that is complex and engrossing. The writing is fluid and easy to read, making this for a very enjoyable book. I was a bit disappointed when I came to the ending and I still had so many questions, though. I think this was due to my own misunderstanding about what this book was about. When I first read the synopsis, I was under the impression that this would be a mystery or thriller. I read the novel as if suspense was building, waiting for the unfolding of what happened to Lisa and Meredith. This is less of a mystery, however, and more of a work of literary fiction. The book touches on subjects, such as bullying and how families deal with trauma and tragedy, in ways that don't take sides. Lisa is a mean girl, bullying Meredith to make her friends laugh, but she can be kind as well, telling Meredith that it was "the best day of her life" when she ate lime snow cones with her. Meredith may have been hurt by Lisa's cruelty but she still became obsessed with Lisa's life after the kidnapping. The characters in this book were incredibly complex, real, and far from cliched. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to readers of literary fiction. Just know going into it that this is not a mystery novel and you might not have all of your questions answered in the end.

Don't go into this one thinking it's a suspense or thriller. It's actually more of a character study... or should I say, a study of several characters. Despite Meredith being the main character, she's not the only person whose innermost thoughts we're privy to. This story deals with survivor's guilt, PTSD, trauma, and simply the everyday life of a young teenage girl. After something terrible happens to you, how do you go back? How do you move on, or at least deal with it?

This book was recently named one of the best books to read this year by Glamour, and I can see why. I do think it'll suffer by not knowing what you're getting into though. Yes, the book involves the abduction of a teenage girl, but it focuses much more on the aftermath than the crime.

Meredith just wanted a root beer. Just a root beer from the corner store after a long day at school. When she spots Lisa Bellow in the store before she goes in, she almost changes her mind... not eager to face the "popular girl" in school that she still hasn't forgiven for once making fun of her weight. Though they shared a friendly moment years ago, the most contact they've had since is ignoring each other as they dig through their side by side lockers. Until they're both forced to the ground of the store by a masked robber demanding money from the man working. The mystery man then vanishes with Lisa, leaving Meredith alone and frozen on the floor... where she stays until another customer eventually comes in and finds her and the unconscious worker and phones the police.

This is not the first time something terrible has happened to this family. Meredith's older brother suffered a freak sports injury which resulted in the loss of sight in one of his eyes. His promising future in baseball is proclaimed over, and a year later the whole family is still dealing with it... at least they still have Meredith, who is safe and here... but not.

I received an ARC of this book from Net Galley and Simon & Schuster, thank you! My review is honest and unbiased.

When I read the synopsis for this story, I expected it to be more of a drama than a thriller. Which ended up being true. However, nothing happened. At all. The author definitely did a good job in writing this story in the perspective of a middle schooler. But seriously. Nothing happens. Meredith is a character I felt pity for at times but mostly, I was just bored with her and the entire story. There's only so much I can read about inane things in her life, like how bad her mom's pancakes are, and how she likes to sit in a certain spot in the car. While I don't think the story needed to be a thriller, I still think it could have been a bit more .... interesting. It's a sad story, but I felt that I was more drawn to Lisa Bellow than to Meredith and her family. In the end, this novel just didn't do it for me.

I received an eARC of this book from Netgalley and Simon & Shuster in exchange for an honest review.
          Two girls with very different social standing in the middle school pecking order find themselves at the local deli when the unimaginable happens.  A masked gunman appears and robs the place, taking one of the girls, Lisa, on his way out.  How do you cope with this- being the one left behind, knowing you didn't do anything to help her?  How do you cope with the guilt when you see the grief torn mother, still waiting for her girl to come home.  Or the near relief  of your own family that, granted, has already seen their share of pain.  How do you deal with the friends that want to know everything- or worse, her friends that now cling to you?  Meredith is hurt and torn, slowly coming to terms by living much of her life in another reality- one in which she knows what happened. 
          I loved this book, crazy plot holes and all.  It was imperfect, but beautiful and read like the consciousness of guilt.  Does that make sense?  The emotions found here were so dense you could cut them, and I often found myself crying for Meredith and those she loved (or in Lisa's case, hated).  Now, I will admit that some of the characters, like Claire, were less than likeable... but they were raw and real.  She was nuts, but she was a mom.  
        My main complaint is that I did not care for the ending, of which I cannot explain without spoiling everything.  All in all, this was a four star book for me.   
           As far as the adult content scale goes, there is sexual content- though very minor, language, and drinking.  I would give this book to my 13 year old niece without worry.  It is, at most, a four.

Susan Perabo’s The Fall of Lisa Bellow is very on trend at the moment. By this, I mean that she joins the ranks of so many other (novel debut) authors writing their version of the same topic: What happens to an otherwise normal family after a child abduction? The past few months have yielded so many of these novels—the recently reviewed The Trophy Child included—that you can only stop to wonder how long this wave of like novels will continue—and who’ll do it better.

But, let’s turn our attention specifically to Lisa Bellow, shall we?

Perabo started this novel at a walk and never really picked up a lot of speed. In fact, this novel started off with a lull that bordered on boring. Though Meredith’s chapters were believable from a middle schooler’s POV, they were just sort of blah. Essentially, uninteresting chapters describing an “unremarkable” kid, as she claimed of herself early on. Perhaps this was a stylistic tool, but it bored me to skimming. The only thing about those first few chapters that I appreciated was the mother’s outlook on marriage and motherhood. Though it came from a place of cookie-cutter middle-class suburbia—and read as such, with family breakfasts, family games and singalongs described—her reaction to her life, in the context, read as real, and that DID interest me.

However, this novel’s 3-point shots—you know, those pivotal scenes that make a reader gasp for more, desperately turning the pages to become so engrossed in the story that they can’t bear to put it down; yep, those scenes—were not brilliantly handled by a long shot. And those, of course, are the ones that HAVE to be handled well. In the interest of *no spoilers*, I won’t point out specific scenes, but I will say that they weren’t presented with the drama or tension that they needed, that they deserved. It was almost like, “Oh, by the way, that just happened.” I actually had to re-read at least one of the scenes, thinking, “Surely, that’s not how we’re leaving it! Really?”

In all honesty, it’s difficult to really react to this novel, because it was kind of like cardboard—sturdy but bland. There was a unique idea here, but there wasn’t much by the way of thrilling—or even engrossing—about it. It was yet another cozy family thriller—The Trophy Child meets The Most Dangerous Place on Earth + a mug of Earl Grey tea and some fuzzy socks. If that’s what you’re looking for in your next read, CHOOSE THIS NOVEL! But, it didn’t work for me.

Was The Fall of Lisa Bellow deficient in its display of actual writing skill? No, not really. Did Lisa Bellow attempt to put a spin on an inside look at a typical family and what happens when tragedy strikes? Yes, it did. But I never particularly felt anything for these characters or the outcome of their lives. But, by a little over halfway through, I was screaming, “Can we get on with it already?”

***SPOILER*** And, the one person’s life that I did care about was NEVER resolved!***

Picture this: You’re presented with a plate beautifully smeared with a delicate pea purée—BUT that’s it. There’s no meat, no potatoes, nothing to really sink into to feel satisfied by the end of it (excuse the Southerner in me, if you will). I love a delicate purée, but not when there’s nothing else holding it up. And that’s what I got from Lisa Bellow. What am I going to do with all of these details–subtle little details that could have meant so much–if I don’t care about the people experiencing them? I didn’t need the attempted nuances of learning about Meredith’s favorite place to sit in the family car or the mother, Claire’s, perspective on watching her son grow up. Why? Because all of this was just fodder for filling and really amounted to nothing by way of an actual plot.

***SPOILER*** (Fingers to nose bridge) And I really can’t even discuss how this novel was resolved. Just can’t. Just…sigh…the novel just sort of slipped away into oblivion, so much so that I literally kept turning the pages, as if there would be something more there at the end—like that bonus scene at the end of the movie after the credits roll.***

Susan Perabo’s The Fall of Lisa Bellow did nothing for me and, unfortunately, earned little more than a ‘Meh, I coulda done without this one.’ **

This book is not at all what I anticipated based on the title and my scan of the summary. Thirteen-year-old Meredith Oliver promised herself a root beer right after school to raise her spirits following an Algebra II test that didn’t go as well as she had wanted. She almost doesn’t enter the little sandwich shop when she sees popular girl Lisa Bellow already at the counter. Just as she’s about to forgo her treat, Lisa looks up and their eyes meet. The only thing worse than skipping the store because of Lisa would be Lisa knowing she was skipping the store because of her. So Meredith takes a deep breath and pushes the door open. Never once suspecting that her entire world was about to change. Because a few minutes later, as Lisa is giving a sandwich order to the guy behind the counter, another man enters the store. He wears a mask and he’s holding a gun. He makes both girls lie on the floor while he robs the store. It’s the first time Meredith has been this close to Lisa since grade school. A time before popularity divided her fellow classmates and there was an imagined need for social structure. As they lie there on the floor, staring into one another’s eyes, one pair flooded with tears and the other wide and frozen with shock, the man tells Lisa to get up, and she does. And then she is gone.

Though the title is The Fall of Lisa Bellow, the story is not Lisa’s. It belongs to Meredith and her mother Claire. Though it was unexpected, I found it to be a very interesting direction to take the story in. It’s common to read about an abduction from the point of view of the girl who was taken, but it’s rare to read about the girl who wasn’t. This is not only about Meredith’s trauma but the aftermath and how it affects her whole family dynamic. It’s also an intriguing look into the relationship between mothers and daughters. The story alternates between Meredith’s POV, the unpopular girl who suddenly finds herself popular, and her mother Claire’s, who knows she should feel guilty about being happy it wasn’t her daughter that was abducted, while struggling to know what to do for Meredith. It was a captivating look into the family they were before and they family they are after. The mother and daughter relationship was one that neither I nor my own daughter could relate to because we have a much different relationship than the characters in the book. Truthfully, I’m not sure I liked either character very much, but it did not keep me from being fascinated by them. I believe my favorite character was Evan, Meredith’s brother who has been living through his own tragedy over the past year.

And what about the girl who was taken? I wanted to know what happened to Lisa. There were rumors it was staged and she ran off with an older guy, rumors she was being stalked. There were people who hoped she was still alive and people who believed she was already dead. But the readers don’t know because no one else in the book does, either. It made me adjust my entire train of thought, but I think following the path the book does not only breaks the mold in a story like this, but it’s a brave course to take.

I enjoyed the author’s writing; and even though I felt the pace was slow at times, she held my attention from beginning to end. I will definitely read more of her work in the future. The Fall of Lisa Bellow is a compelling story of a mother and daughter, the tragedy that threatens to tear them apart, and the path to their healing.

In recent years, many resources have been allocated to the research of the way in which individuals respond to traumatic events. Not only are traumatic events problematic for those who are directly involved, but they are also responsible for affecting those who experience them peripherally; the innocent bystanders, so to speak. While there is much work to be done, one thing is certain: each individual experiences and processes these events in a very unique way; uncovering the various coping mechanisms, symptoms, etc., may prove as difficult as solving a complex puzzle.

"There were winners and there were losers. There were people in big houses and people in small houses. There were people who drew X’s through entire sections of school forms and people who had a name for every box. There were people whom others spoke to with respect, and people who others looked past. There were people who had choices and people who did not. Why was this, again?"

Meredith Oliver walks into a local restaurant, Deli Barn, to pick up a sandwich; she has inadvertently walked into a traumatic situation. Her middle school classmate, Lisa Bellow, will be kidnapped while she watches and she is paralyzed from doing anything to either prevent or gather any information about the incident.

"The phone felt strange and bulky against her ear. Why did news so often come this way, plastic boxes pressed against our temples? Half the things that mattered in her life had come through this box. Why was she never where the thing was happening?"

While this might be enough material upon which to craft an intriguing story, for author Susan Perabo, and readers of this stunning novel, this is only a small portion of what develops into the deeply moving, funny, relatable journey of not only Meredith and Lisa, but also their families, fellow students and community. The novel includes significant themes such as the power of sibling relationships, mortality, the challenges of motherhood, coming-of-age, forgiveness and, obviously, coping with trauma.

"She took a deep breath. At the end of the breath she found something, something totally unexpected, something she hadn’t even been looking for, but there it was for the taking, like turning a blind corner and bumping smack into the one thing that could save you. Resolve."

Having thoroughly enjoyed Perabo’s work as an author of short stories (her collection Why They Run the Way They Do was one of my favorite reads in 2016), I felt a little anxious about this first published novel; my fears have been more than sufficiently assuaged. Her talent never ceases to amaze me and I will begin, again, to anxiously await the next work she shares.

With fascinating character development, enough wonder to keep the pages turning at a quick pace, and intelligent, carefully-crafted writing, The Fall of Lisa Bellow will surely land on my list of favorites this year and is already on my list of Best Books to Read on Spring Break 2017.

The Fall of Lisa Bellow is the story of a family recovering from two unfortunate incidents that have affected their children's lives. Claire and Mark are both dentists, sharing a practice and living in suburbia. They are just getting their breath back after their son's freak baseball accident, which cost him the sight in his left eye, when their daughter, Meredith, is one of two teenage girls who is held at gunpoint in a sandwich shop. The second victim, middle school's most popular girl, Lisa Bellow, is abducted during the robbery, while Meredith is left behind to tell the tale. This story primarily focuses on the aftermath of that incident, paying close attention to how Claire, Mark and their family are affected by it, but also dropping in on other characters, such as Lisa's mother and her friends and classmates.

Perabo's novel gives us insight into a complex and changing family dynamic as they struggle to comes to terms with an unexpected and traumatising event. As Meredith continues to withdraw and move further into an imaginative and distant world, Claire battles with her own feelings about motherhood. At times, we ourselves struggle to understand what is going on in Meredith's mind as she continues to imagine what has been happening Lisa since her abduction. Survivor's guilt is dealt with quite well by Perabo, as she accurately paints a picture of a girl who is not just traumatised by the robbery itself, but by being the one left behind.

The characterisation in this novel is interesting. Meredith receives most of our sympathy as a 13-year-old girl struggling with being the survivor of an incident where the school's Regina George has been kidnapped. The fact that Lisa has been painted as unlikeable makes Meredith's feelings of guilt even more intriguing. I found it difficult to relate to Claire; at times I was baffled by her behaviour. However, I think the saving grace in terms of characters is Evan, Meredith's brother. He is witty and practical, resourceful and considerate. A huge amount of my empathy went to his character.

If you are looking for an edge-of-your seat thriller, this isn't it. Yes, it is about a serious, traumatic incident and a subsequent kidnapping, but this novel's main focus is on the notion of family and how it must react and adapt according to circumstance. If you like domestic drama then this will be right up your alley.

Susan Perabo takes the abduction of an eighth grade girl and turns it into an examination of motherhood, teenage-hood, and all of the social dynamics entailed therein. And she does it in a way that keeps you riveted to this story.

Lisa Bellow is one of the popular girls at school. In fact, she's probably THE popular girl. She's dating a high school boy, and she controls the social sphere in which she exists. She knows this, of course. Given the opportunity to be kind to someone, Lisa Bellow is the sort of girl who will tell you to "sit on the middle of your chair so that your butt's not hanging over the side."

Lisa Bellow is not nice.

Meredith knows this. She and Lisa have known each other since grade school, in which there was one brief episode of Lisa showing any sort kindness. Are Meredith and her two best friends any kinder, though? They regularly talk smack about Lisa and her friends, judging every bit as harshly as they are judged. I liked that Susan Perabo used this. She understands the desperation of teenage girls to be popular, to have the jealous attention of their classmates. Their need for this is so dire that they do not hesitate to switch allegiances if it forwards their progress.

That Lisa Bellow is not liked makes her abduction all the more intriguing. Perabo shows how Lisa's classmates do not so much mourn her absence as hijack it for their own purposes, Meredith included.

Teenage friendships are not the sole focus of this book, though. Meredith's mother Claire has her own interpersonal issues. She is not immune to social progression, nor is she unwilling to use someone to help her, even her own son. Claire's larger, more acknowledged need, is in how to parent Meredith, the girl left behind when Lisa Bellow was abducted. Meredith was there with Lisa, she lay on the floor with her, and then watched as the kidnapper took Lisa away. Claire's terror over nearly losing her daughter exacerbates her need for control, Her faults are on full display, from mistakes she has made in her marriage to mistakes she makes professionally and as a mother. Yet Claire needs you, perhaps more than Meredith does. She needs to know that you're on her side and that you believe she - and Meredith - will get through this.

This is not a mystery or suspense thriller. The title may be focused on Lisa Bellow (which surely would please her), but the book focuses on a mother and a daughter and how each makes sense of their roles, whether within their tribes or within their family, or even within themselves.

There are a couple of missteps, namely Meredith's imagination as far as Lisa Bellow is concerned. I get that she needs to process what happened and that this processing may take a different look than what I'd expect. But the payoff evaporates too quickly, without Meredith having a chance to respond. There is also a romance left under-developed.

Nevertheless, this is a book that demands attention paid to its flawed characters. How do you survive nearly getting kidnapped? How do you survive your child nearly getting kidnapped? How do you figure out who's a friend? How do you stay connected to your spouse and your children?

How do you begin to comprehend the impact of the fall of Lisa Bellow on you?

I absolutely fell in love with Perabo's prose. It's lyrical without getting too poetic, and has touches of surrealism sprinkled throughout the narrative. She constructs Meredith and Claire's voices with grace, making each their own while maintaining the flow of the story.

As the story is told from both their points of view, it was essential to have them be distinct enough while also playing off one another. In Meredith, there's the side of adolescence and angst. Her trauma is magnifies this even more so, and consequently she lashes out at her mother.

This isn't the story of the fate of Lisa Bellow but rather the effect her disappearance has on not just Meredith, Claire but the rest of the community. On one hand, I was disappointed that it's never revealed, but it would take away from the effect of Meredith and Claire's processing.

Despite this book being about a tragic incident, it didn't feel too depressing. There were moments, but it felt balanced out. Especially with the some of the other characters. My personal favourite was Meredith's older brother, Evan. He's perseverant and kind. He has his own cross to bear with a baseball accident robbing him of his sight, and a potential athletes career. I would have been quite happy just reading about him. Claire, the mother, was a bit harder to like but her concerns for her children were valid.

As Meredith comes closer to accepting Lisa's disappearance, her state begins to unwind. It's done subtly enough to seem realistic, and feels authentic enough for the reader to become impatient with its' progress. Which is unfair to Meredith, and to anyone else whose experienced trauma.

What I took away from this book, was that there isn't a time limit to recuperating from trauma. That it's different for everyone, and especially for a person so young of age as Meredith. This book is a deep, touching and insightful story that will stay with you long afterwards.

Please pay no attention to my star rating as I didn't finish this so I can actually fairly give it a rating. I think it's a case of the wrong reader for a good book. I was expecting a thriller and not so much literary fiction. Thank you anyway!

At first I was confused on the genre of this novel and wasn't sure if it was literary fiction or YA. I tried to sit back and enjoy the story regardless of my confusion and easily got sucked into a story about the teenage survivor of a sandwich shop robbery in which the most popular girl at school was kidnapped. I felt propelled to read to the end to figure out what happened and really did enjoy reading this book. I read this book prior to its publication, thanks to NetGalley, so the percentage read kept increasing on my Kindle without me feeling like anything happened to move things forward or wrap things up. Finally, I got to 99%, 3 min left with absolutely no resolution. While I enjoyed actually reading this book, the ending pretty much ruined it. I don't need my endings neatly wrapped up in a bow, and often prefer them not to be, but this one fell off a cliff (as the title suggests). I'm grateful for the opportunity to read it early, but was not a fan.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30753832-the-fall-of-lisa-bellow" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="The Fall of Lisa Bellow" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1467551841m/30753832.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30753832-the-fall-of-lisa-bellow">The Fall of Lisa Bellow</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/164672.Susan_Perabo">Susan Perabo</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1761781327">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This is the story of a family that has experienced tragedy. The parents are both dentists, they have a high school aged son, who has lost one of his eyes during a freak accident playing baseball (I loved this character) and a middle school age, unpopular daughter who is a victim of a deli robbery in which a fellow student is taken by the robber.<br />This book deals with issues the whole family has, especially the daughter and how she is dealing with the post traumatic event. <br /><br />Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and author Susan Perabo for the advanced reader's edition.
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