Jaye Robin Brown, or Jro to her friends, lives and writes in the mountains north of Asheville, North Carolina. She is fond of horses, dogs, the absurd and the ironic. When not writing, you can find her in the art room of the high school where she teaches or roaming the mountains searching for inspiration.
No Place to Fall by Jaye Robin Brown
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
No Place to Fall by Jaye Robin Brown was a solid YA Contemporary for me. As anyone who knows my reading preferences knows, Contemporary isn’t always my genre but I saw the cover of this one and was immediately interested.
Amber lives in a small town, sings in her church, and has a close group of friends. The summer leading up to her junior year in high school, Amber and her best friend Devon decide to spend time going to the hikers barn to interact with the hikers who stop there as they go through the Appalachian Trail. Not only does this give her a chance to sing for them, but it also makes Amber think about what is outside of her little hometown.
As Amber begins to think about what she wants to do with her life, she finds out about NC – Arts which is a place she could go to focus more on her singing. As she begins to dig into what she needs to do in order to apply, she also starts to realize she has feelings for Devon’s brother, Will. Unfortunately he has a girlfriend and even though things are changing between these two characters, there are other people they have to take into account.
I liked the characters in this book and although there were situations that had me shaking my head, I had to remind myself that these were teenagers and they do make mistakes…big ones. I do have to say I was a bit angry with Will in the beginning. For reasons I can’t go into, I thought he would be a jackass and for a little while he was. He finally figured out what he needed to do but in the meantime, he was on my list and I was glad that Amber finally got up the nerve to tell him what she was really thinking/feeling.
There are a number of relationships changing here…not just Amber and Will’s. Amber’s friendship with Devon is changing due to his friendship with Kush. With the addition of Kush and Sean to their circle, some of the dynamics of their group have changed and the things that were normal routines are not as consistent and Amber is definitely feeling it. I did feel like I only got glimpses of who the majority of the characters were supposed to be – not that they weren’t solid, well-built characters…just that I didn’t connect with them. With the exception of Amber, I didn’t find myself really connecting to any of the other characters in the story.
Outside of the relationships, we find out that Amber has a lot of other things going on with her family. Her father is (somewhat openly) cheating on her mother, her brother-in-law is selling drugs, and her older sister is messing up her life by standing by him. With all of this going on, Amber makes a choice that eventually puts her in a position that requires her to decide what is important to her.
If you are looking for a quick, contemporary read where music plays a major role, definitely check this one out. I thought the writing was well done and this was a story that I was quickly pulled into and made me want to know how things were going to end up for these characters.
Thank you to Harper Teen for the review copy!
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