Falling Into YouSeries: Falling #1
Publication date: March 14th 2013 by Jasinda Wilder
Rating: ★★★★☆
Goodreads - Amazon
I wasn't always in love with Colton Calloway; I was in love with his younger brother, Kyle, first. Kyle was my first one true love, my first in every way.
Then, one stormy August night, he died, and the person I was died with him.
Colton didn't teach me how to live. He didn't heal the pain. He didn't make it okay. He taught me how to hurt, how to not be okay, and, eventually, how to let go.
A little warning before the review. Falling Into You deals with self-harm as a form of coping with grief. If that's something particularly troubling for you but you still want to read the book anyway, just be careful.
Kyle Calloway is Nell's first love.
They grew up together and have been inseparable since they were little kids, so it's really to no one's surprise they end up together when they grow up. It just seems like the natural progression of their relationship, and everyone around them agrees they are perfect for each other.
But destiny has other plans, and on one stormy night Kyle was ripped away from Nell's life. For good.
Nell turns into a shadow of her former self, going through life like she's not really there, blaming herself for what happened to the first boy she ever loved. She's broken inside, numb to the world, restoring to desperate measures to make herself feel something, anything, to make sure she's the one still here and still breathing and not gone out of this world.
Like Kyle.
And then Colton Calloway, Kyle's older brother, happens.
The first time Nell sees him is at Kyle's funeral. He's the complete opposite of who his brother was, the black sheep of the family with inked skin and a smoking habit. But more importantly, he understands what she's going through, knows exactly how much it hurts. So she can't help but lean into him when he offers her comfort, and then she also can't help but feel guilty about her reaction to him when the boy who holds her heart, Colton's own brother, is dead.
They don't see each other until two years later, but the memory of Kyle's death and the moment shared between them is still fresh on Nell's mind.
Colton can see her pain clear as day, mostly because he knows a lot about what is like to be hurting and not knowing how to deal with it. So he offers Nell his understanding, his time, and a shoulder to lean on when things get to be too much and the pain is almost blinding.
Together they learn that it's okay not to be okay, and that the only way to let go is to allow themselves to feel the hurt and guilt and pain and misery that Kyle dying brought them. They learn to count on each other, and that, sometimes, if you let it, something beautiful can come out of the worst things that ever happened to you.
Falling Into You was heartbreaking.
Get into it I knew it was going to hurt because of the premise of reading about a girl falling in love with someone only to have that person taken away from her too soon. I knew there were going to be tears and sadness and heartache, but I still put my big girl pants on and decided to keep going.
Colton and Nell were screwed up inside. They both had a lot happen to them that they didn't know how to or didn't allow themselves to deal with, and that messed them up deeply. But also brought them closer and closer together.
For both of them, being around someone who understood what they were going through and didn't try to make any excuses about it or tried to make it better was... Relaxing is not the right word, but it's the first that comes to mind. It was like they didn't have to pretend they had it together when they were around each other, they didn't have to pretend they were okay because they weren't and keeping up a facade was exhausting.
And that was beautiful.
It was such an experience to read about characters that weren't trying to fix each other at every bad turn, but instead were allowing themselves to tap into that hurt and grief they were so obviously still feeling. Colton not wanting to make Nell better, but instead telling her that there were no magic words or tricks he could say or do that would make her okay again and saying that he understood was amazing, okay?
He was just there for her, showing her that he wasn't going anywhere and that there was a light at the end of the tunnel of endless pain she was stuck in. Because he had been in that same tunnel and he came out on the other side of it. And yes, it was after a lot of heartbreak and misery and nights thinking that feeling hopeless and empty and broken was all that was to him, but he got out, and she could, too, if she wanted.
Falling Into You wasn't a story about healing, it was about learning how to take that step. It was about having something horrible happen to you, letting yourself feel it, and learning that it's okay not to be okay. It was about realizing that no one can help you unless you're willing to help yourself, but that there are people who still love you and are willing to hold your hand while you're trying to figure things out.
No comments:
Post a Comment