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| "If I Fall, If I Die" by Michael Christie is a coming of age story with all the best elements. |
I was sitting in the break room at work, reading on my lunch break, when a friend walked in and said, "What are you reading?"
I did what I normally do, just held the up for her to read the title while I kept reading the page I was on.
"That sounds depressing," she said.
"If I Fall, If I Die" really is a depressing title but the story is anything by depressing.
Will has lived as long as he can remember Inside with his mother. Will's mother suffers from panic attacks and sever agoraphobia. She has never forbade him from going outside, so in the opening of this book he goes outside for the first time.
Once outside he meets a boy who he think is his first friend. This encounter opens up a whole new world for Will.
Not only does he go Outside, but he goes to school. He makes more friends. He learns to skateboard.
He also finds himself in the middle of a mystery. In looking for a missing boy he befriends a crazy vagabond, and finds himself on the bad side of a local bootlegger.
As Will moves further and further away from his mother, she finds herself more and more wanting to beat her own paranoid fears.
A typical "coming of age" story, I loved watching Will find his own way Outside, and find his place in a world that couldn't be more different than the one he grew up in.
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I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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