EMBERKayson Williams stole my heart in an instant with his charm and dimpled smirk. We were just kids, but we fell hard, we fell fast, and we fell deep. It was perfect…until it wasn’t. I fought hard for him, for us, while he set out to ruin it all. He hid behind our relationship, masked the pain with our love, but never stopped falling. Until one day he decided we weren’t enough anymore and … and threw us away. He tossed us and the future we were building aside. As time passed I started to heal. The shattered pieces of my heart, the jagged pieces of my soul, started to mend. I lived and laughed without him. Found each day easier to breathe. Until one day, four years later, he stormed back into my life like a hurricane.
KAYSON
Ember Martinez was like a burst of color in my dull and desolate world. Timid and shy yet full of life and love, she brightened each day and gave me a reason. A reason to live, a reason to love, a reason to care. She tried to heal me even when she didn’t know how truly broken I was. She shattered the front I gave to the world and loved me for me. No matter how many times I fucked up. But as much as I wanted and needed her, I still felt like I was drowning. I still let my demons darken my soul. So I made a decision that wrecked me and almost ended me. I had to let her go. No matter how tightly she wanted to hold on, I had to break the hold to save her from me. Then when the unimaginable happens, four years later, I can’t stay away any longer.
My weakness tore us apart, but her strength brought us together. We were fated to fall and together we keep falling deeper.
more
For me, this book by Lucia Grace was just an ok read. It had a good strong start and caught my interest quickly. I had a hard time reading about Kayson. His behavior and treatment of Ember totally alienated him from me while reading this book. And I had a hard time reading Ember. I wanted her to be strong and tell Kayson to leave her alone, but I empathized with her need to hold on to him. It hurt my heart to read all her emotion and pain even while I was mad at her for just taking whatever he threw at her. The storyline was enjoyable. It flowed well and was quick and easy to follow. I enjoyed the glimpses of the side characters and look forward to book two about Tracey and Damon.
I saw this book through a “help me figure out the title” Facebook page. It sounded super interesting, and I was anxious to find out the title. Once that mystery was solved, I downloaded Falling Deeper. It started out pretty well. I liked Ember, I liked Kayson. They were great at the beginning. The sheer number of times the word “smirk” was used was annoying, but it was easy enough to overlook because the plot was good.
As the story unfolded, however, I became more and more frustrated with the characters. As someone who has dealt with enabling and addiction, I understand how you want to help, and when you love someone, you don’t want to abandon them during their addiction. However, at some point, you have to put yourself first. I was bothered by how often Ember overlooked the drug use by Kayson. I was especially bothered that Ember’s mother overlooked it (as a mother, you don’t want your 16/17 year old child to be exposed to this, so I would expect her to try to talk her daughter out of that relationship), especially knowing that her own husband was in jail. When they finally split, I thought this was the healthiest thing for both of them.
Four years later, Kayson is clean. Ember is teaching (I’m not sure how in four years, she finished her last year of high school, went through college, and is already 6 months into teaching; timelines are important to me, and this just didn’t align) and endures a school shooting. This pulls Kayson to come home and reconnect with Ember.
I appreciated that he felt the need to check on Ember and wanted to get back together. My biggest issue is that, with the exception of sobriety, I didn’t see any change in Kayson’s behavior. He was still angry and yelled. He was still jealous. And Ember hadn’t grown up much either. She still gave in to whatever Kayson wanted. I also felt as if the ending was really rushed; I didn’t feel satisfied with the loose ends like school shooting were tied up (I know it was kind of mentioned, but it was still too loose for me).
I know it seems like I didn’t like this book, but I really loved the idea of the plot. I love that it dealt with addiction and second chances, as well as tackling a tough situation of a school shooting. I think that this book had a lot of potential, but it just didn’t work for me.