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    While I'm Falling
    While I'm Falling
    While I'm Falling
    Audiobook10 hours

    While I'm Falling

    Written by Laura Moriarty

    Narrated by Julia Gibson

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Author Laura Moriarty, a recipient of the George Bennet Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy, melted the hearts of readers and critics alike with her stirring debut The Center of Everything-a novel in the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird. Now, in While I'm Falling, Moriarty again crafts a dramatic tale filled with unforgettable characters.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateNov 20, 2009
    ISBN9781440760495
    While I'm Falling
    Author

    Laura Moriarty

    Laura Moriarty is the New York Times bestselling author of The Chaperone, as well as The Rest of Her Life, While I’m Falling, The Center of Everything, and American Heart. She received her degree in social work before returning for her MA in creative writing at the University of Kansas, and she was the recipient of the George Bennett Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. She currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas, where she is a professor of creative writing at the University of Kansas. Visit her online at www.lauramoriarty.net.

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    Reviews for While I'm Falling

    3.5/5

    95 ratings15 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I usually stay away from the books with mother/daughter or divorce issues, but I liked this.
    • 4/5
      Excellent read
    • 4/5
      While I'm Falling by Laura Moriarty. The book follows the life of a college student whose whole life seems to unravel, starting with the divorce of her parents. It was actually a very good book to share with friends (I read it for Book Group), because all of us know someone who has or is going through a divorce and we talked about lots of issues: friends, money, children, etc. And many of us have college-aged children, too. Several of us recall screaming in our heads at the main character, "No! Don't do it!" But she did it anyway. At one point, the author took me to the brink of somewhere I did not want to go, and then, thankfully, let me off the hook. A good solid read. 3.5
    • 4/5
      Veronica Von Holten, a student at KU in Lawrence, KS, is caught in the middle of her parents' divorce. Her mom needs basic things like shelter, food and emotional support and her dad is a level 1 jerk who's already enjoying the company of a younger woman. Veronica learns to set boundaries with her family but experiences the angst of being a college student and having to deal with grown-up issues too early.
    • 4/5
      Veronica, a college student and pre-med major, has reached a crisis point in her life; her parents have divorced, her residence hall work is falling apart, a house sitting gig turns out very badly, and her relationship is in terrible trouble. This is a fascinating book which I really got into and enjoyed immensely.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book, although some of the story seemed somewhat unbelievable. I did like the writer's voice and the story didn't go in a predictable path.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book a lot - it was easy to read, very well characterized, compelling plot with everything going wrong (though maybe a little too neatly wrapped up in the end). Her parents have just divorced, she's failing chemistry and won't be pre-med, she betrays her boyfriend, etc. The writing was quite good, putting the reader right into the scene; however this became just a bit tiresome with overuse of trivial details, like what the waiter's button said, on page 122; four pages later, she stops chewing and puts her fork down, and then her father points at her with his fork; and pages later flyers for garage sales are handed out, etc. etc. If it hadn't been for that, which kept bringing me up short, I'd have rated it a 4.
    • 5/5
      I like this so much---now I can't wait to go back and read her other books. I thoroughly enjoyed the way she developed the characters around this story---and it was a story---so believable in the views from the different characters, particularly the main character, Veronica.
    • 5/5
      The angst of the mother-daughter relationship is thoroughly explored in this book as only the skillful writing of Laura Moriarty can do. However, also contained in this book is exploration of an example of how a long time marriage can end up in divorce. The book is structured around the parallel actions of a mother and her daughter, and as things develop their lives appear to be mirror images of each other. They both make mistakes, and they are both "falling" from their former lives into a potentially sad future. The question is, will the daughter be doomed to suffer similar consequences to those of her mother? Conversely, can the mother learn from the daughter?The mix of family relationships includes the father, a second daughter (sister), a prospective new step mother, and of course a whole host of other characters who add suspense, love, empathy and confusing complications to the story. Anybody who has experienced the tensions of college student life -- study time versus party time -- will be able to identify with the first person narrative of Veronica, the daughter who is a student at KU. Anyone who has experienced a marriage breakup will probably be able to identify with some of the feelings expressed in the story of Veronica's mother and father as well. The themes contained in this book will touch the lives of many readers. For those who finish the book, I believe it will enhance appreciation of their relationships with friends and family, and it will encourage their nurturing of personal relationships with loving care.The book contains some references to and quotes from George Eliot's Middlemarch that literature buffs can appreciate. It would be an interesting exercise to compare the two novels. That brings to mind my favorite George Eliot quotation. "It's never too late to be who you might have been." That quote fits well with this book.Another thought I had while listening to this book, "Youth is wasted on the young," (George Bernard Shaw). This book also seems to be saying that experience is wasted on the old.
    • 4/5
      Veronica’s parents were married for twenty-six years. They may have been in a rut, but they seemed happy enough. Veronica’s dad is a lawyer and her mom stayed home – at first raising the kids and then caring for her and her husband’s elderly mothers. While the roof is being repaired, Veronica’s father comes home to discover one of the roofers asleep on his bed, wearing only a pair of pants. Veronica’s parents end up getting a divorce.Veronica is a junior in college, and working as a resident advisor, at the time and her life seems to spiral out of control after her parents’ divorce. She is devastated by the divorce and has a lot of trouble coping. Veronica makes one poor decision after another and doesn’t seem to know how to get her life back on track. When her mother shows up at her dorm with problems of her own, Veronica thinks matters will only get worse, but soon discovers some new things about herself and her mother.While I’m Falling by Laura Moriarty is the story of a family that has fallen apart. The family has been struggling for years, but Veronica has been too self-absorbed to notice it, and the story is told from her point of view. Her parents’ divorce just throws her for a loop. I thought Veronica was a great character and very realistic for someone her age. She was struggling with her job, school, and trying to grow up and just couldn’t handle one more thing piled on. Yes, a lot of her problems were created by her own poor decisions, but I think that’s pretty common for twenty year olds.I thought Veronica’s mother was true-to-life as well. She had spent so much of her life taking care of others that she didn’t really know how to take care of herself. Veronica’s father came across as a jerk to me, but maybe I was seeing things from a female perspective. Parts of While I’m Falling are pretty sad, but I didn’t really come away from the book with a sad feeling . I enjoyed this book and actually felt a little hope by the end of it.
    • 4/5
      Veronica is a junior in college and she's trying to balance her life: she hates her job in the dorm, she's flunking classes in her major, she's conflicted about her relationship with her boyfriend, and her parents are getting divorced. She is sinking in angst and when she reaches out to her mother for help, she finds that the safety net she's always expected is no longer able to support her. And her father is equally inaccessible to a young woman fumbling through life trying to keep her head above water.Starting out with a singular focus on Veronica, the novel eventually broadens to include her mother's perspective as well as Veronica's so the reader has a better perspective on what is driving her mother than Veronica does. It can be hard to sympathize with either Veronica or her mother given the problems facing them are so very often of their own creation but anyone who has lived through the thoughtless decisions and complete self-involvement, blinders if you will, of college life will agree that this portrayal, while perhaps a bit excessive, was well done and realistic. Some of the events in the novel seemed a bit rushed but not entirely outside the realm of possibility given how fast divorce can and does bring some people to their knees. This is a novel meaty with issues: divorce, fidelity, the pursuit of happiness, and ultimately the power to go on regardless becoming a little more forgiving, a little more understanding, and a little less self-centered.Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy of this.
    • 4/5
      While I’m Falling is the story of two women’s lives falling apart. Veronica is a college junior struggling to keep up in her pre-med classes, and not doing well at her job as a resident advisor. Natalie, Veronica’s mother, is on the brink of homelessness after a divorce.Both women’s lives are in a downward spiral, due to events both in and outside of their control. Both women make some really bad choices. And both women display very admirable qualities, which ultimately allow them to help each other out of their predicaments. This is a novel of the mother and daughter growing up, together.This was a very enjoyable read. The characters are likeable, but flawed. The situations, emotions, thoughts, and conversations are realistic and engaging. The pacing is good – it’s not a fast-paced novel, but it never drags, either. This book didn’t make a huge impression on me (I won’t remember it for years to come), but I definitely enjoyed it.
    • 3/5
      This book is just okay. It's a little boring at times, and even when it's not boring, I had to force myself to keep turning the pages. It's written well and really does put life in perspective, but there wasn't much drawing me in. I guess I didn't feel a connection to Veronica. I think that if I had, I would have cared more about what was going to happen to her.Something about this book that bothered me was that the author would be moving forward in the story and tumble upon a certain something. Then, she'd backtrack to the past to further detail the something that was mentioned in the present time. It felt like stop and go traffic. Forward, stop....forward, stop. I don't think this would have bugged me so much if the detail had given more warrant to the story, but I just found it to be unnecessary information. I found myself scanning these parts of the book because I just wanted to keep moving forward.Overall, it's just like I said.....OK.
    • 4/5
      Laura Moriarty's "While I'm Falling" follows Veronica, a junior in college at the University of Kansas as her life slowly unravels in the late fall. Veronica is trying to do it all--suceed as a pre-med major, work as an RA, keep a healthy relationship with her boyfriend Tim, and stay on the sidelines of her parent's messy divorce. But when Veronica agrees to drive a coworker and his girlfriend to the airport one icy morning, an innocent car crash sets of a series of events that will cause Veronica's neat life to unravel. But ultimately her troubles will be superceded by her mother Natalie's problems. The experience draws the two women closer together, but how much will they have to give up to survive? I really, really enjoyed this book. It was my first encounter with Moriarty, who is obviously a gifted storyteller with a talent for telling the emotional side of everyday American lives. I felt like my heart was twisting with every turn of Vernoica and Natalie's lives, and I was really cheering for them to make it out okay in the end. The emotionaly relationships between the different characters in the novel was really rich, and I enjoyed how Moriarty fit the family together as a whole over the course of her novel. If you enjoy stories about everyday women in difficult times with a focus on their emotional stuggles, this is a book for you.
    • 4/5
      If you’ve read The Rest of Her Life, you already know that Laura Moriarty has such an easy command of language that not a lot needs to happen in her books for them to seem gripping. While I’m Falling is no exception. To over simplify, a college student, Veronica, struggles with a pre-med course load and her parents divorced resulting from her mother’s indiscretion. Veronica makes one bad choice after another over the course of a pretty crappy weekend. Her mom, Natalie, is reeling from the financial consequences of the implosion of her marriage. In the hands of lesser authors the story reads like chick lit, but Moriarty’s rendition focuses more on the complex relationships within families mostly that of a mother and a mature daughter.