[Book Review] Falling Into You by Jasinda Wilder

Title: Falling Into You

Author: Jasinda Wilder

Published on: March 14, 2013

source: own copy

         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. 

OMG this book. My God. The joys, the swoon, the pain, the loss, the heartaches, the music, the grief, the love, the brokenness, the connections, the healing, the coping. Every word, every emotion, they pierced my heart in every possible painful way. It doesn’t help that I’ve been through the same grief Nell and Colton has gone through. Caught me off guard, I swear.

My emotions are all over the place right now. I’m sorry if I won’t make much sense. I haven’t been this much into a book in months! I’m talking emotionally here. This book is every bit based on feelings and beautiful beautiful words. Jasinda Wilder expertly weaved the perfect adjectives and nouns and verbs into the exact sentences...words that describe the scene, and most especially the emotions that the characters feel. It pours into you until you become the person...the feeling. It’s consuming and when I was reading an extremely heartbreaking scene, I became Nell. I was there. I was her. I felt her grief. Her pain is mine. Her loss is mine. Surprised at myself, I just heard myself gasp and break, it was crazy! How can a book touch me this much? (Maybe because I’m currently experiencing some heartbreak too?) It was heart shatteringly painful and shocking. And Jasinda Wilder just perfectly captured each moment. 

I’m not even gonna narrate the story of the novel in summary for you guys, but I’ll describe the book, and why I recommend it. I’m not sure it’s for everyone, but seeing that it has thousands of reviews, I think it’s safe to say that if I survived it, and others did too, and perhaps you will too.... It’s just that I love Jasinda Wilder’s words. She’s a freaking dictionary genius! And my gosh the music! It perfectly encompasses the emotions and thoughts of the characters. It was obvious that each song was not just randomly picked, but carefully chosen as it certainly described and captured the feels of the moment. I don’t know why in every sad book I read (where someone died), music is always always there. For most, music became their anchor to life, to reality. When I experienced that, books became my anchors. It was weird how the make-believe worlds in the books I’ve read tied me to reality. It helped me keep the pain at bay, not forget about it but just push it at the back of my mind, just like how Colton said it was.

I love how Jasinda Wilder did not just begin the novel saying Nell already lost someone. Instead, she began telling the story of Nell’s first love and how it came to be. I like how innocent she told Nell’s firsts. A lot of firsts...it was lovely. How Nell transitioned from there to her life after that heartbreaking incident is captivating and I could just feel the grief not just hanging there but it’s pulling me down. When Colton finally appeared in the scene, from the first time they interacted, they touched, you could already feel it’s different.. and not just because the book described it that way. And I like how the book has many spaces in between, time-wise. A really briliiant idea. But it’s really the music that connected everything to them, to me, to the readers. 

The book is sad..full of sadness. of uncontrolled emotions. Each chapter title smartly described what the main content of that certain chapter has... Though the ending was abrupt..somehow..but it was still fitting.