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The Fall

2014 | Young Adult (YA)

Madeline Usher has been buried alive. The doomed heroine comes to the fore in this eerie reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe's classic short story "The Fall of the House of Usher." Gothic, moody, and suspenseful from beginning to end, The Fall is literary horror for fans of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Asylum.

Madeline awakes in a coffin. And she was put there by her own twin brother. But how did it come to this? In short, non-chronological chapters, Bethany Griffin masterfully spins a haunting and powerful tale of this tragic heroine and the curse on the Usher family. The house itself is alive, and it will never let Madeline escape, driving her to madness just as it has all of her ancestors. But she won't let it have her brother, Roderick. She'll do everything in her power to save him—and try to save herself—even if it means bringing the house down around them.

With a sinister, gothic atmosphere and relentless tension to rival Poe himself, Bethany Griffin creates a house of horrors and introduces a whole new point of view on a timeless classic. Kirkus Reviews praised it in a starred review as "A standout take on the classic haunted-house tale replete with surprises around every shadowy corner."

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Bethany Griffin
Edition Hardcover
ISBN 9780062107855
Language English

Main Image Courtesy: Orion Children's Books.
This content (including text, images, videos and other media) is published and used in accordance with Fair Use.

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Sophia (Bookwyrming Thoughts) (530 KP) rated

Jan 23, 2020  
The Fall
The Fall
Bethany Griffin | 2014 | Young Adult (YA)
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6.0 (2 Ratings)
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*puts on best announcer voice* Ahem.

I'd like to present to you the <b>most confusing book of the year</b>, <i>The Fall</i> by Bethany Griffin. It's a <b>very odd and peculiar book </b>based on Edgar Allen Poe's short story, <i>The Fall of the House of Usher</i>. In Griffin's retelling, Madeline Usher believes that she can break the curse on the Ushers, but then she wakes up in a fabulously claustrophobic box called a coffin.

In all seriousness, <i>The Fall</i> is actually <b>a retelling on one of Poe's stories </b>that I didn't actually read, but watched instead (so bad, it was good). From reading the synopsis of Griffin's retelling, <b>it sounded like Madeline Usher had spent most of her life trying to break free from the curse.</b>

I ended up with something different. At least, that's what I would probably end up with if I actually made it to the end of the book, which I chose not to. I totally admit I peeked at the last few pages just to see what would happen, and it was nothing special.

<b>Griffin starts us out right when Madeline wakes up in a coffin. The rest of the book, however, is all flashback from Madeline's childhood, starting from when she was nine. It's a little out of order, but has a pattern to it in a way</b> – one chapter is nine, the next is fifteen, and occasionally there's a diary/journal entry from Lisbeth Usher. I'm no fan of chapters being even remotely out of order (they can get confusing when you're busy and come back to the story a few days later), but <b>at least Griffin had a pattern.</b>

At least, until about page 150. <b>WHERE IS THIRTEEN AND WHY ARE YOU SKIPPED.</b>

Of course, we go back to thirteen in the next chapter and continue the pattern. In my little game of peek-ahead, I found out <b>there <i>is</i> no particular pattern. My hypothesis to all this is Griffin portraying Madeline's madness increasing as her age increases. As Madeline grows older, she becomes madder. </b>How's that for implementing science?

Anyways, about 50 pages later, I'm pretty much going, "Your point is..?" in a very uninterested mental voice that may or may not include a mental eye roll or two in the process. Here's all that I've found out from what I read:
<ol>
  <li>Madeline wakes up in a coffin – Go figure.</li>
  <li>She and her brother Roderick is cursed – Knew that.</li>
  <li>The House of Usher is, well, alive – Knew that.</li>
  <li>The House of Usher is malicious – Knew that, but this was ten times creepier from the cheesy short film.</li>
  <li>Madeline has a desire to break the curse on her family – It's very subtle.</li>
</ol>
In the long run, <b><i>The Fall</i> is written in a scattered format (see my hypothesis!) to emphasize the fact that the House of Usher is alive, malicious, and will do <i>anything</i> to keep an Usher within its walls for all eternity. It's nothing remotely impressive if you read or watched the original.</b>

And this is when the book club kills me.

<a href="https://bookwyrmingthoughts.com/dnf-review-the-fall-by-bethany-griffin/"; target="_blank">This review was originally posted on Bookwyrming Thoughts</a>