Official Review: So Down I Fall by Alex Benedict

[Alexandra Bayer]

After her mother's death, Grace O'Neil is tired of living a life full of depression. So she attempts to join her mother in the deep, by trying to commit suicide in the ocean. But Grace is saved, supposedly by a boy that lives on the island. But that boy doesn't match up to her memory... someone else saved her. Or something else. While unraveling mysteries, Grace befriends Adam, a new boy from Iceland. But Adam seems to be keeping secrets. Why is he on the run from his father? Why are all five of his sisters bald? Why is his room covered in tinfoil? And why can he swim in a pool, but not the ocean? As Grace uncovers more clues, she ends up finding out some things that she didn't want to know. Maybe sometimes, secrets are meant to be hidden.

I was very excited to read this book after receiving it through Goodreads First Reads, because this is the kind of book I would actually pick up on my own. I love mythology, the supernatural, and the sea. Plus a female lead in first person just added to my anticipation. I knew I would have to read about Grace's attempt at suicide if I was to make it into the good parts of the book. Normally, this wouldn't bother me. I know that these are just words coming from the author's imagination. However, when reading the suicide scene in So Down I Fall, I found it really disturbed me. The descriptions were incredibly accurate and almost made me feel nauseous. I had to take pauses and deep breaths to make my way through it. And I love that in a book. I was barely past page one, but already the writing was making me feel something. That's an incredible feat. I sympathized with Grace and felt her pain. I commend Alex Benedict.

One thing that really bothered me about this book was all of the editing errors. Spelling mistakes, lack of punctuation, simple things like that that could be so easily corrected with more thorough editing. When a book has such silly mistakes, I expect there to be not many of them. One to three is probably the average. This book had upwards of seven. And every time I saw them, I had to laugh. Because it is just ridiculous to be a published book with so many errors. It distracted me from the writing each time, which is not what Benedict was going for, I'm sure. If these errors had been fixed, I think I would have enjoyed this novel even more than I did.

Cliff-hanger ending. I'm giving the warning now. If you want to read this book, you better have the second in the series at your disposal. It is so frustrating when a novel ends on a cliff-hanger. I don't like it at all, but it is a good way to sell sequels. Near the end, I could feel the story winding down, trailing off, and so I was prepared for a gentle ending. Then, out of the blue, something terribly exciting and unanticipated happens, and the reader is left off on that note. If I see book two in this series next time I'm at the book store, I'll buy it. Which is, of course, what Benedict was looking for readers to do. I suppose I'm predictable in that way, but then, who isn't? If I read a good book that ends abruptly, I don't know who wouldn't go looking for the sequel.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a twist on mythology, but still kept the main focus and points of the supernatural creatures. I'll definitely be on the look-out for book two. I found this novel to be something of a modern classic. I would recommend it for anyone looking for water mythology, mysteries, and romance.