Review: Fault Line by Christa Desir

Release date: October 15th 2013
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Purchase: Amazon

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Ben could date anyone he wants, but he only has eyes for the new girl — sarcastic free-spirit, Ani. Luckily for Ben, Ani wants him too. She’s everything Ben could ever imagine. Everything he could ever want.

But that all changes after the party. The one Ben misses. The one Ani goes to alone.

Now Ani isn’t the girl she used to be, and Ben can’t sort out the truth from the lies. What really happened, and who is to blame?

Ben wants to help her, but she refuses to be helped. The more she pushes Ben away, the more he wonders if there’s anything he can do to save the girl he loves.

*Received ecopy from Publisher for review.

Fault Line wasn't perfect. If anything it was rough, real. It dealt with a serious topic, along with some stereotypical issues at start that made me go hmm...But in all honesty, it wasn't a bad read. The story was good.

My problem is I didn't really like the main character/narrator. Ben just didn't rub me in the right way, but after getting over the flirtatious segments I accepted and understood Ani, all she had experienced and was going through. Ben, on a side note, just turned me off from opening chapter. Even worse in the way he reacted to what happened to Ani. It's normal to feel guilty and want to make everything better again. But it took him so long to realize he couldn't. Throughout the book,  Ben gave me the impression he wanted her to get over it because the whole thing was affecting HIM. Like, she embarrassed him because she was his girlfriend and he wasn't looking too good. I know he's a kid and once more, it's a natural reaction, but I seriously just wanted to slap him and say, "Shut up. She can't be normal again." Not like Ani ever was normal, anyway. 

The way Ani was portrayed at first wasn't very likable. Many might even join in with what society has done often, which is to point fingers at the victim, say she deserved it. Her initial behavior surely left room from that pre-judgment but Ani is no way at fault for what happened to her. Still, I liked how realistic the story was in depicting the disgusting way her schoolmates reacted after hearing about it: very insensitive. The book is indeed, truthfully written.

Fault Line delineated how a terrible event changed the lives of a young couple who seemed very much deeply into each other prior. Ben had a lot going for him, being a great swimmer up for a wonderful scholarship. While Ani was a promising artist in various ways. The story showed how fun and exciting things were and how it all turned into a complete nightmare, vividly.  Suddenly, one night disrupted their relationship and like Ben, I wanted desperately for Ani to recover some essence of herself and make it through. Unfortunately, his love for her didn't seem to be getting through and he had to stand by helplessly and watch her bury herself deeper in the ground, hurting herself over and over. It was rather sad to read, and experience through words how hard it was for someone who cared about you not capable of helping. And I really wanted Ben to reach out to Ani's mom from the moment it happened. That part I didn't like so much. But in trying to put myself in his shoes, I'm not sure I would've told her mother either when Ani insisted on him not betraying her trust. He already felt guilty for not being there to stop tragedy from taking place so it was understandable he would do anything to try and keep her happy.

To conclude, it was a good, realistic plot. I haven't read much on the subject matter because of all the emotion such books can stir up, regardless if you've experienced the turmoil. I had actually stopped a few chapters in because I wasn't connecting with the story fully. But once I started it over and continued to the end, I finally grasped its overall purpose. Not many would like the story, but if you have an open mind I suggest you give Fault Line a try. Who knows, it just might provoke your thoughts.

About the Author

Christa Desir is an avid reader who has been in love with YA books ever since reading Judy Blume’s FOREVER (while hiding between the stacks in the library). 

She lives outside of Chicago with her awesome husband, Julio, and their three children. When Christa isn't writing, she is an editor of romance novels. (This job rules.) She is also a feminist, former rape victim advocate, lover of coffee and chocolate, and head of the PTA. It is a rare day when Christa doesn’t humiliate herself somehow, and she frequently blogs about her embarrassing life moments.

www.christadesir.com | twitter.com/ChristaDesir | Blog

Guest Post: Finding Your Inner Teenager by Christa Desir

Welcome to my stop on Christa Desir's Fault Line Blog Tour, hosted by Mundie Girl Tours. Check out the guest post below:

Release date: October 15th 2013

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Purchase: Amazon

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Ben could date anyone he wants, but he only has eyes for the new girl — sarcastic free-spirit, Ani. Luckily for Ben, Ani wants him too. She’s everything Ben could ever imagine. Everything he could ever want.

But that all changes after the party. The one Ben misses. The one Ani goes to alone.

Now Ani isn’t the girl she used to be, and Ben can’t sort out the truth from the lies. What really happened, and who is to blame?

Ben wants to help her, but she refuses to be helped. The more she pushes Ben away, the more he wonders if there’s anything he can do to save the girl he loves.

GUEST POST

---------------------------

FINDING YOUR INNER TEENAGER

So. I originally was going to write a blog post about what it’s like writing from the POV of a 17yo boy as a 38yo woman. But frankly, that post has been written beautifully and in several forums by A.S. King, Stephanie Kuehn, and Carrie Mesrobian. If you haven’t read their posts on it, you should go check them out. 

Instead, I thought I would blog about what it’s like writing for a teenager when I am obviously not one. Because we ALL do this (unless we’re prodigies and publishing as teens). And this question doesn’t seem to be asked all that often. The writing a different gender or race question comes up A LOT, but somehow no one has ever asked about writing from the point of view of a teenager.

The thing is, no matter what age/gender/race/etc that you write from, there are some universal human truths that we’re all working from. We all know love, joy, sorrow, anger, compassion, humiliation, defeat, terror, etc. So when I’m writing from a teen’s POV, the first thing I do is consider how that might look different for them than for me. 

Let’s take humiliation (because I’m very familiar with this one!). When I was a teenager, the stakes of humiliation were so much higher than they are as an adult. Which is sort of funny because you’d think the stakes increase as we age, but actually, in this case they don’t. Because fitting in is such an integral part of the teenage existence (even fitting in as a misfit), being humiliated is a VERY BIG deal. And there are so many opportunities for humiliation in a high school setting. So if I’m writing about what humiliation would look like, I have to dig deep and either remember a humiliation I experienced as a teen or come up with a comparable adult humiliation and describe those feelings.

A few months ago, I was writing a scene about a girl who was caught dancing goofy on a video and the video was passed around online. As an adult, I’ve sort of come to terms with the fact that I’m a bad dancer and now I embrace my goofy style (think the dancing scene in “Can’t Buy Me Love”). So my adult reaction was NBD, it’s a video of goofy dancing. But then I see how my nieces and nephews and teen betas post things on FB, and I realize that it’s a VERY big deal. Everything is so careful that they post. Every picture is perfect of the girls and of the guys, most pictures are them doing something ridiculous (like painting their chests green for a football game). And this is all important. Girls can’t do ridiculous things like goofy dance (unless they’re intentionally being outsiders which is a whole different category or unless they’re doing it with several girlfriends which is then okay) and have that posted on FB. It would be humiliating. 

So I then have to dig deep into my own life and come up with that feeling as a teen or an equivalent feeling as an adult. This, luckily, was a no brainer for me. A month ago, my Julio was out of town and I texted him, I missed waking up next to you this morning. Only it turns out I texted my pastor instead. (Oh Christa). This is what adult humiliation looks like, and what it feels like. This is how I found the emotional landscape of the goofy dance video teenager.

And this is what we do as writers. We take universal truths, universal emotions and we mine our own lives to get them right. And part of that requires remembering what caused us joy, sorrow, humiliation, defeat, etc as a teenager (or at the very least, being very observant in what causes those emotions in the teens around you). And the other part requires us to get into that head space as adults. That is how we connect with teens in our writing. And the more real the feeling is, the more teens will connect with us.

About the Author

Christa Desir is a YA author who loves dark contemporary books. Her debut novel, FAULT LINE, comes out from SimonPulse October 15, 2013. Her second novel BLEED LIKE ME will be released from SimonPulse in Fall 2014.

Christa is also a feminist, rape victim activist, and romance novel editor. She lives outside of Chicago with her awesome husband and their three small children.

www.christadesir.com | twitter.com/ChristaDesir