Ashleigh Paige

See more of my reviews sooner on The YA Kitten!Fall to Pieces desperately wants to be a cross between a Courtney Summers novel and the famous Catcher in the Rye, but it falls short of being like either.Where the Summers comparison comes in is how utterly unlikable all the characters are. Ella is an unabashed mean girl whose best friend's death has affected her so much that she's jumping off things and might not graduate high school unless she changes her tune. Now, Courtney Summers is one of my all-time favorite writers for how she can write such unlikable characters but still make them real, easy to invest in, and relatable in some small way. This is where Naidoo fails. Her characters are too over the top and too unlikable.Now, the Catcher in the Rye thing. Everyone knows Holden Caulfield has a mouth like a toilet, and so does the entirety of Fall to Pieces. You can't make it a few pages without someone or other cursing. Surprisingly enough, I have no issue with the profanity being here. A lot of other reviewers to, but I've got a mouth like a toilet myself, so getting annoyed at its existence would be rather hypocritical. What I dislike about it is that it isn't used well. Catcher in the Rye? Used it right despite how often Holden cursed. Fall to Pieces? Not so much.Beyond that, the prose has a few issues and purple moments. There are people whisper-shouting, eyebrows are getting tangled up in each other, and silver rain kicks at the grass. There's also a piece of prose so messy that it makes it sound like a drink within a vending machine is suddenly outside the vending machine and exploding behind a person's face. The prose might be easily cleaned up to make it clear that the drink is exploding on the other side of the glass that person's face is pressed against. Once I got to the point where they blindfolded the new kid and pushed him off the bridge in order to make him participate in their jumping-off-stuff games, I knew I was done.I want to support young authors because I aspire to be one, but Naidoo's novel doesn't do it for me.