Breaking Her Fall

Rating:
Summary: Goodwin eclipses his wonderful "The Blood of Paradise"....
Review: "Breaking Her Fall" - the title says what we all feel about our daughters; about the peculiar loss of them as they enter the teenage years, the years in which their ability to be a person in their own right is eclipsed by the pressures of a society gone mad in depicting the sexuality of a "woman" as young as 14. Tucker's daughter Kat, at 14, is in the throes of this hormonal madness, and he doesn't even know it. Tucker's an oddity, a father who has won primary custody of daughter and son when his former wife moved up the social ladder and mostly out of their lives.

It's hard not to like Tucker, who's a self-made man, with a love for music and a need to be there for his children. It is with some trepidation that we watch him turn to rage when Kat is involved in a sex scandal at the home of a boy he knows nothing about. In slow motion, his rage leads to injury and disfigurement of the boy, and incarceration and trial. But his trials are many, both in trying to understand and protect his daughter, keep his younger son from fear, his love for his best friend's wife at bay, and himself from going mad.

The strain of parenting adolescents in this mixed up world is brought to the fore in Kat's tale, and although it is written in first person from Tucker's point of view, there is no doubt that author Stephen Goodwin was able to get inside the heads of all his main characters...from children Kat and Will to the amazing Lilly, from Trish, his ex-wife who attempts to preserve her motherhood from the tragedy, to the teenaged Jed Vandenberg, with a permanent scar from a heated misunderstanding. Goodwin makes them all come alive on the page. And he does more, something more, that, for me, brings the book to life - he brings in the ordinary; talks about the what the notes on his refrigerator say, talks about the demise of his marriage, has a remarkable reaction (like many of us) to the first time he hears the beautiful songs of the posthumous Eva Cassidy CD, "Songbird". ..."as I danced with my daughter, her eyes searching mine, the two of us just floating, I felt something give way inside of me....as though all our old love, every particle of it, had been restored to us by the music we were hearing."

As my own daughter grew up, I remember times of anger and despair that seemed like an out of body experience, and so it is with Tucker... in describing his violent reaction to young Jed Vandenburg, at a time where he had no idea where his 14-year old daughter was and if she was all right..."I can remember how the air seemed to stiffen and tighten, how every word and tiny gesture took on a huge significance, and how the hair on the back of my neck suddenly bristled".

Goodwin is a writer of style and grace, his book a revelation and a scare for parents and adolescents, a book that will stay with you longer than the details of the story itself.

A definite must read!


Rating:
Summary: Breaking Her Fall
Review: "I felt a deep, burning fury, a heat and pressure that originated in my chest and made it hard to breathe.." (p1) "Breaking her Fall", by Stephen Goodwin, is beautifully written piece that truly opened my eyes. As a student who is not a book worm, I see myself struggling to find a book I can read for more than a few chapters, but Goodwin kept me hooked. Throughout the novel, I would stop and think about how close my generation sadly relates to this book. Everyday at school it seems I hear about these kinds of horror stories; wild parties over the weekends, or someone dropping out of school because they became pregnant. In this way, the book was emotionally at times hard to read. I felt for Kat, truly understanding her feelings of fear, embarrassment and shame, and I can only imagine as a parent Tucker's feeling of uncontrollable anger and the feeling of losing someone or something that seemed so close to you, but had been so far away. I loved how the book allowed me to share every emotion of Kat, Abby, Tucker, Lily and Will.

From the very beginning of the book, I could feel Tucker's love for his daughter and I admired this book because it shows a father's compassion for his children. In life people make choices, some with life altering consequences that they must learn from, which Kat's and Abby's families, as well as mine have. Compassion and learning from choices in life I think are two themes that Stephen Goodwin focused on, both that I feel strongly about and is one reason I think I enjoyed this book so much.
I would recommend this book to both young adults and parents, because it shares story that no one you would think would ever want to talk about. It let me feel for each member of Kat's family and to feel what it would be like to be in such a situation. It's a great read, that you can laugh and cry and feel deeply touched throughout.

Rating:
Summary: Title was compelling...
Review: ...and the book started out pretty good; I found the synopsis intriguing; however, overall I found BHF to be tedious and the characters unsympathetic.

I didn't care for the way the children were allowed such disrespect in their words and actions toward their parents, and I was disgusted at the way the parents were portrayed as total patsies to their children.

Even worse, I thought that the main character's (Tucker) disinterest in holding the boys who violated his daughter, a mere 14-year-old child, was unrealistic and reprehensible. I find it completely unbelievable that there would be a man out there who would not want to see predators such as these brought to some kind of justice.

I was relieved to finish this book. Besides the above criticisms, I found it to be far too wordy due to several sub-plots that were unnecessary and distracting.

Rating:
Summary: A sweet story of a lonely man¿s love for his children
Review: After a rough summer night -- which I'm sure you've all read about now -- a father and daughter retreat into their separate worlds of hurt, ostracized and alone, and the bulk of the novel describes how they find their way back to each other. Goodwin's prose is spare, genuine and convincing, much like Richard Ford's, his characters fallible and convincing. No great truths are revealed, no envelopes stretched, but Goodwin's is an engaging and satisfying story.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: As a writer, and avid reader, my critique criteria are simple: I want an engaging story (and that includes well-developed characters) and strong writing. Breaking Her Fall has both. I give extra stars when I don't want the book to end, when I feel true pleasure in the experience of losing myself in a story, and that's how I felt while reading this book.

I loved the plot, characterizations, pacing, and dialogue. I particularly enjoyed the tender, emotional moments between the protagonist and his children, a man trying to be a good father, who fails but keeps trying, and ultimately is successful. The relationships portrayed in the story felt authentic, very human.

My critiques are nitpicky: I occasionally was pulled out of the drama by the narrator's references to writing the story after the fact, now that he was looking back on these events. Too many times, the character, Tucker, spoke directly to the reader and apologized for using "cheesy" language to describe things. This worked for a while, but it eventually sounded too much like the author was stepping in to apologize for not being able to write as well as he wanted to. And this was unnecessary because Goodwin is a wonderful writer.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: Both as a writer and a reader, I loved this book. At first, I was dubious that the subject could support such a lengthy work. Indeed, the writer in me kept looking for scenes that could be cut. However, the author's skillful prose more than justifies the length, as he throughly explores the repercussions of the event that drives the books action.

As the father of a daughter, I felt brought into the protaganist's world, feeling his anguish and fear. Some readers complain that the main character is unlikable, but I found his honest portrayal, flaws and all, quite refereshing. One of the books strengths is its dutiful avoidance of saintish heroes and dasterdly villians, instead showing how every character experiences the story through the lens of his or her own shortcomings.

Many other reviewers have written the basic outline of the story, so I won't repeat them. Sufice to say that Goodwin's well polished prose and excellent use of the first person offers readers a moving and evocative view of loss, grief, and recovery.

Rating:
Summary: Loved the first 3/4!
Review: Breaking Her Fall's main character is a flawed man who knows it. He's a single father raising two children with an out of town money/status-hungry ex. He gets himself into a spot of trouble while searching for his daughter who is not where she said she would be. As the parent of a daughter just a tad older than the daughter in this book, I felt Tucker's actions were a bit over blown and obsessive. He has not learned to trust himself and so defaults to 'testoterone dad'. This book was a terrific read for the first 3/4 of the way into it. Then I felt the author kept repeating the same conversations/fatherly musings/ and themes. I had to make myself finish it because I had so loved the beginning I wanted to wrap up these characters and see their happy ending. The daughter/dad final 'coming to terms with what had happened' set in nature conversation seemed contrived. I felt as if it could have come 100 pages earlier with more succinct writing. All in all a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Not impressed
Review: I had high expectations for this book. Normally a story line involving a father/daughter relationship would suck me right in, but Breaking Her Fall just didn't do it for me. Peppering the teenaged characters' dialogue with profanity didn't convince me that Goodwin has a firm grasp on their insights. There was a world of material that the author could have focused on without delving into the neighbors' sorrows and other tangents. I felt as though the daughter's depression and the theme of abandonment were not given the development that could have made this book wow instead of blah.

Rating:
Summary: Nice to get a father's perspective
Review: I liked this book immensely. As a woman, I like getting into into a man's head, and Stephen Goodwin's hero, Tucker Jones, is compelling and believable. I was rooting for Tucker and his children throughout. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Clinton-Lewinsky, upscale D.C . setting.

And Tucker's relationship with Lily is spot on believable.

My only problem with Tucker is that he never seems properly cognizant of the fact that, because of his actions, a boy lost his eye. Tucker obsesses about a lot of things, but the attention he pays to Jed's lost eye is cursory at best. (And Jed doesn't seem adversely affected by the fact that he lost an eye. He still is the star of his soccer team; is this normal?) I kept excusing the slim treatment of Jed's injury as denial on Tucker's part, but since the novel is over 400 pages anyway, I think Goodwin could have devoted a couple more paragraphs to Tucker's presumed remorse about it.

One more thing - Tucker tells us that Lily's baby Julia died on April 19, 1987, a work day in the novel. April 19, 1987 was, however, Easter Sunday. I know because my oldest child was born on Saturday, April 18, 1987, the day before. A tiny careless error that momentarily pulled me out of Tucker's world.

Rating:
Summary: It's about honesty and forgiveness
Review: I won't go over the plot of the book as most reviewers have but rather the feelings of the book which is what hooked me. At first rage is the consuming emotion. What parent wouldn't be so angry that they don't think but just react. Then as the story goes on, all the charactors have to face themselves and open up to each other. I feel that behind every closed door there are families that are dealing with these emotions. They may not be the same situations but the emotions are the same. The charactors seemed so real and honest, and often not very likeable, but they all seemed to be trying to get to each other. I agree with many readers that Tucker should not have had the affair with Lily, but as a result of the affair and his overwhelming love for her, he was finally able to forgive Trish for leaving him--because he could now understand her overwhelming emotions when she left him. Human emotions can overtake reason, and that happens in this book often. I loved the charactors and the story line. They were so painfully human. Thank you Stephen Goodwin.