Faller
Will McIntosh's Faller had an extraordinary concept, but unfortunately never managed to click with me. While I appreciated the thought that went into it, and absolutely loved some of the scenes (like that initial 'fall'), I just couldn't connect with the characters or immerse myself in the story.This inability to connect / immerse meant that I had a ton of trouble keeping the characters straight and remembering who was in the before matching up to who was in the after. The disjointed writing, whilst admittedly an appropriate choice given the premise, never quite appealed to me either.
I did feel bad for Izabella as she was displayed in the before. And I totally got where she was coming from in wanting to be duplicated. The disease sounds absolutely horrible. I think the family/friends portrayal was touching, and I could see why Faller would do what he did for her. Actually, any of the ‘before’ stuff that was talked about was fairly interesting to me. I have a feeling I might have liked the book a lot more if it hadn’t been told in the past/present style that it was.
Overall, I can recognize that Faller is not badly written but it definitely was not a read I enjoyed. Unfortunately, definitely not the greatest introduction to Will McIntosh’s work. Still, I did like the concept so I’ll be looking for another book to try out from this author in the future.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy from the publisher for review consideration.
