Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Catch Me When I Fall

by Nicci French



      Nicci French, or should I say, Sean French and Nicci Gerard, the husband and wife team who write together under the name of Nicci French, have put together a novel that has a terrifying scope. That scope is about the destruction of the self of those who are in this world with Bipolar Disorder. I know several people who are Bipolar and was eagerly wanting to read this book because of my knowledge and dealings with these people. However, I came away from this book more distressed and upset than I was before I started to read it. I had never read anything by this author duo, and therefore had no preconceptions concerning this book. That being said, Nicci French, et al, is/are good writer(s), and the actual style of the book may be the problem that I am having trouble reading, not the writers.

Holly Krauss is a seriously defective person, who until the time of the beginning of this book was sort of able to keep herself and her life together. She gets her self into various mishaps and always manages to rescue the total package before it crumbles, but this time and this place, she starts losing that ability. She is successful and has a business with her girlfriend, who she also goes out playing with after hours while her husband stays at home keeping the fires warm, almost. Holly gets into mess after mess and cannot seem to stop. She doesn't know how to get herself extracted from these situations, so she gets further in and involved until she has a person stalking her and wanting to kill her. However, she can't figure out why, or even if the stalking is really real or just her imagination working overtime on her. And neither can her friends.

The story is confusing in many places and I found it hard to get into the character's mind, maybe because of the Bipolar mental disease and maybe because of my inability to keep it flowing in my own mind. But that inability left me not wanting to finish the book, unfortunately. I did sweat through it to the end, but I am not an avid fan of this style of writing. So, I am going to leave it at that, as far as a review of the story goes. The writing was good, in most places, but I think that having a duo write this book may have been one of the problems I faced in the reading because, in some ways, the split of the character carried through to the print and cohesion factors in the actual book.

If you can get into the actual storyline and just read it as though you were reading something else and enjoy it for what it is, then it is a good book that you can take up some time with. However, if you are actually looking for a thorough story about Holly Krauss, Catch Me When I Fall may leave you feeling like you are freefalling and not able to catch yourself.

The Book

Warner Books
January 2006
Hardcopy
0-446-57848-7
Psychological Suspense
More at Amazon.com
Excerpt
NOTE: Explicit, behavior, but nothing really offensive to an adult mind.

The Reviewer

Claudia VanLydegraf
Reviewed 2006
NOTE:
© 2006 MyShelf.com