(Originally posted on July 27th-reposting because it is now available for purchase!)
HOW WE FALL BY KATE BRAUNING
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Source: Kate Brauning, the author, in return for an honest review.
Publication Date: November 3, 2014
Synopsis:
Ever since Jackie moved to her uncle’s sleepy farming town, she’s been flirting way too much–and with her own cousin, Marcus.
Her friendship with him has turned into something she can’t control, and he’s the reason Jackie lost track of her best friend, Ellie, who left for…no one knows where. Now Ellie has been missing for months, and the police, fearing the worst, are searching for her body. Swamped with guilt and the knowledge that acting on her love for Marcus would tear their families apart, Jackie pushes her cousin away. The plan is to fall out of love, and, just as she hoped he would, Marcus falls for the new girl in town. But something isn’t right about this stranger, and Jackie’s suspicions about the new girl’s secrets only drive the wedge deeper between Jackie and Marcus–and deepens Jackie’s despair.
Then Marcus is forced to pay the price for someone else’s lies as the mystery around Ellie’s disappearance starts to become horribly clear. Jackie has to face terrible choices. Can she leave her first love behind, and can she go on living with the fact that she failed her best friend? [Goodreads]

I had to sit down and spend a lot of time trying to create the perfect review for this book because I just couldn’t find words. I feel like I owe it to all of you to do this book review justice because usually I have such a hard time expressing my feelings towards a book and can’t really get my thoughts out to be understandable. So although this will still probably be confusing and rambly I’m sorry. And I would love to say thanks again to the author for giving me a copy for review and making me feel all the feels.
In the wake of her best friends disappearance, Jackie realizes just how consumed and obsessed she has been with her relationship with Marcus, her cousin. She comes to terms with the fact that she has neglected everything else in her life and feels at fault for what had happened to Ellie. As she begins to try and uncover Ellie’s whereabouts it causes a rift between her and Marcus and their increasingly intense hidden relationship. Trying to call off the relationship makes her realize just how much she is in love with Marcus and causes her to really face the decisions and choices that lay in front of her.
Starting this book I was not sure how I would feel by the end of it. How We Fall focuses on taboo love, with things like this and the controversy behind it, already so many feelings and opinions were created in my head. At the beginning I was a little weirded out (I consider myself a pretty open-minded person) because I kept putting myself in Jackie’s position and couldn’t ever see myself falling in love with my cousin. By the end and definitely after reading some of the authors blog post about the book I realized it was so much more than the taboo love of cousins. I was rooting for Jackie and Marcus’s best friends/love relationship by the end of the book and was so invested in the story.
This (love) story although not very relatable for me personally, still drew me in and felt so real. The emotions, feelings and witty banter were on point! Jackie was an absolutely fantastic female character who I found I have a lot in common with. She blogs, reads and is into classic black and white movies (my soulmate!) She also like to hide from her family and spend time off by herself. Jackie’s love life was not relatable to me, but she was fantastically sarcastic and sassy and full of personality that I still found such a connection with that character.
Of course there were some swoony love interest and some highly intense detailed romantic scenes that were written with such intensity and realism. There was no fake or quick insta love to make the story unrealistic and unbelievable. Kate Brauning did a down right super fantastic job writing a deep, intriguing story filled with love, family, teenage angst, hard and difficult choices, mystery, drama and insight to life. Literally all the components that make a well rounded contemporary.
Overall, How We Fall was a face paced, well written book that had me from page one and left me in awe filled with feels and without words to express just how much I enjoyed this book. It was deep and insightful, filled with dynamic and witty characters that came to deep realizations about love, life and loss.
I highly recommend this book and believe it is a must read for all those who love a deep and thought provoking love story!
(I still feel like I didn’t get out what I really wanted to say. I might have to try and rewrite this review soon. I lent out my copy of the book, but might try to re-read it close to the release date!)