Name: The Way We Fall
ISBN: 9780995216945

Megan Crewe

Originally published in hardcover in 2012 by Hyperion.

The Way We Fall

Sixteen-year-old old Kaelyn challenges her fears, finds a second chance at love, and fights to keep her family and friends safe as a deadly new virus devastates her island community.

The way we fall

Maggie Gordon

The Way We Fall is a plague-based dystopia set in Canada. Since I am Canadian and I really like medical-based thrillers, this book won a lot of points from me just for existing. The story involves a teenage girl, Kaelyn, who lives on an island that is beset by a strange flu that causes people to slowly lose their inhibitions and eventually die while suffering terrible hallucinations. The island gets cut off from the mainland, and society begins to crumble as more and more people become ill. Kaelyn’s father is a research doctor and he is working frantically to figure out what is going on, but with food becoming scarce and families being torn apart by disease, someone needs to set up and try to maintain order in the town. Kaelyn and several other teens take on this task, praying that the mainland will come to save them soon.

Kaelyn’s story is told through journal entries that she is writing to a friend that she has had a falling out with. I found this to be an excellent frame for the plot since it allowed Kaelyn time to reflect on what was happening before she told her story, and the format mirrors the desire that many people have to “communicate” with someone even when they are no longer part of one’s life.

Hayley 📖🌈💜🌸

43 pages in and it just didn't grab me. And I definitely couldn't read a whole series of this book.
I didn't like the diary/letter format, and Kaelyn's "voice" wasn't great? Idk, not really going to pick this back up.

Jessica Nottingham

First off a praise. Megan Crewe has created a virus that is unlike any I have ever read about before, and therefore a hundred times more terrifying. Thinking back, every virus I've ever read about has done ungodly things to people. Skin falling off, limbs atrophying, things that make people run away from you. Crewe's disease? It causes people to be...friendly, albeit overly so. I thought this was brilliant. What better way to spread a virus than through friendly human contact? For that matter, what scarier way?

Also brilliant in the Way We Fall is the way that the story is told, or so I thought. We see the outbreak through the eyes of Kaelyn, a young girl who lives on the island. However instead of her speaking to us as a reader, she is writing a journal to her friend who left the island to go to school. For me, this was a perfect way to see into the world that Kaelyn was living in. All her fears, all her worries, are penned into that journal beautifully. After all, who better to share the deepest parts of yourself with than a friend?

This book dives into the darkest part of human kind, and what happens when we have to fight to survive. Kaelyn learns early on that there are two types of people when the world fires back at you. There are those who band together, and those who take for themselves. Those who create, and those who destroy. Crewe offers us a look at what happens to a community when disaster hits and, while beautifully executed in the story line, it definitely isn't always an easy read.

Although The Way We Fall didn't grab my attention at page one, it was one of those books that was a slow burn for me. By the time that I was a few chapters in, I was scrambling to read more. What Megan Crewe has created here is a new type of dystopian terror. Isolation, greed, survival. It is all played out here in gritty harmony, and it makes The Way We Fall an overall fantastic read. In the world of dystopian fiction, this is something new. I honestly have to say that I loved it.