The Free Fall - Hardcover

Ratcliffe, Jane

3.91

11 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805066675 ISBN 13: 9780805066678

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 2001

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When her family begins to fall apart, sixteen-year-old Let is torn between two interesting and unconventional boys, as she slides into the dark side of alcohol, illegal drugs, and sexual activity in the wealthy suburbs of Detroit. A first novel.

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About the Author:

Jane Ratcliffe writes about music for VH1, Interview, American Music Guide, HOUR Detroit, and the Detroit News and is currently pursuing an MFA at Columbia University. She is also collaborating on a screenplay with documentary filmmaker Sue Cohn. She is a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, takes in about every stray cat she passes and thinks life will end shortly if she doesn't get to travel. She lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly:

Violet Gwendolyn Hitchcock, called "Let" by her friends, is the disarming 16-year-old narrator of Ratcliffe's engrossing first novel. Let is searching for "the shine" (an elusive feeling of "grace"), but she looks in all the wrong places. Nevertheless, she maintains an aura of innocence even as she slowly surrenders to a downward spiral of alcohol, drugs and sex. The author sustains sympathy for her heroine by making readers privy to the obsessive thoughts that begin to drown out the girl's rational impulses, as well as the sense of humor that keeps her afloat. For instance, as Henry, the 19-year-old man of her dreams, begins to pressure Let sexually, she says to herself, "The thing was, I did want to be with him, just not quite like that. Not quite so all at once. I guess I was wanting at least a first date." Other scenes in which a note of comedy takes the edge off of Let's fears: her best friend, CJ, instructs her on how to apply a condom, and her first time snorting coke. But the cumulative effect of Let's breezy tone has strange repercussions when, inevitably, tragedy does strike: readers may come away ultimately unruffled by the event. Ratcliffe also sets up the novel as a flashback, and Let's judgment in hindsight occasionally detracts from the developing action. Still, readers will keep the pages turning as this credible protagonist chronicles her disturbing descent. Ages 14-17.

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