This is a mystery book, kind of. It’s categorized as a thriller/suspense novel, and it kind of is.
There is a mystery element to it but that’s not really what it’s about.
So the story starts off with these people who are on a private jet flying from Martha’s Vineyard to Manhattan.
So they take off from Martha’s vineyard and within 15 minutes or so the plane nose dives into the ocean.
Everyone dies except for two people on the plane this man named Scott who is this poor painter who just happened to be on the plane sort of an accident, and a four-year-old boy who’s Scott saves.
So the main questions that this book seems to be asking are who are all these people?, Why were they all on this plane?
And did any of them have anything to do with the plane crash?
So the way this book is marketed they make it seem like it’s this big thriller trying to figure out who crashed the plane.
But it’s really a character-driven story.
Don’t expect this to be fast moving because it’s not.
It’s very slow moving, but I found it to be completely compelling.
The characters that are written about in here are all super interesting.
They all come from different backgrounds, they all have different motivations, they all have different voices, they all have different reasons for being in Martha’s Vineyard and for being on that plane.
It even talks about like the pilots and the crew members who were on the plane as well.
So you get to see a little bit of everyone.
You are following the one main storyline that’s sort of just going forward in time from the point of the plane crash to sort of when everything gets resolved, to a certain extent.
And then there are also chapters in here that are focused on specific characters.
So it’ll say the character’s name at the beginning and you get to see their backgrounds, see who they are, find out their own motivations.
And then you get to see sort of key moments in their life that sort of explain who they are as a character.
And then you see like how they ended up on the plane or why they ended up on the plane.
And if you’re someone who likes really character-driven stories, I think you’re going to like this as well.
There are a couple of situations and here or a couple of scenes in here that made some of these characters seem like caricatures.
One of the main characters in this story is this head executive in charge of a major news station that’s almost like Fox News.
And then one of the other main characters in here is sort of like the main anchor at this news organization.
Like I recognize that people are over-the-top sometimes and people make like poor life choices but it seemed like this person was making poor life choices thinking he was beyond those choices.
I mean, I guess it’s totally possible that there are people out there like that because you see them all the time making poor life choices in the public eye.
So yeah sometimes I would like read scenes like that and I would feel a little bit incredulous about what was occurring.
But I guess at the same time I sort of can’t feel super incredulous because the time that we’re living in.
You just sort of look around at the news media and what’s happening in the public sphere and there are just really ridiculous insane people like that.
But honestly overall I think that Noah Hawley does a really fantastic job of fleshing out these characters.
I think he does some really interesting things in sort of comparing and contrasting how different characters view the same scene.
A lot of it is like seeing how different people reacted to different things on the plane or even just like getting on the plane, the way that they interacted with different crew members, how the crew member looked at it and how like the person looked at it, and all these different things.
And you are sort of like putting pieces of a puzzle together because you don’t know the full picture of what happens on this plane until basically the entire story goes down.
So it is kind of nice to see everything from different characters points of view and seeing little pieces being put together here and there.
And seeing how things that were talked about towards the beginning of the book do have an influence and come into play later on in the story and things like that.
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
The main character that you’re following in this story seems to be the painter, Scott, and I think that Noah Hawley does really interesting things through his point of view, talking about the ideas of fame and media and public attention and the way the news cycle works and the way that we build people up and then immediately tear them down.
And there’s just a lot of really great ideas that are discussed in here.
And it’s hard to just like talk about them without going into like spoiler territory or without talking about specific plot points, which is why I feel like if you’re someone who likes really interesting characters you definitely should pick up this book.
If you’re someone who’s interested in media at all I feel like you should definitely pick up this book because of everything that it says about the 24-hour news cycle and modern news and the way that they cover major events, especially major tragedies.
All of that is just like super interesting stuff, really great point of view in my opinion.
Noah Hawley also has a bunch of credits in writing for television and movies and you can definitely tell that in this story.
I feel like you could very much picture everything that’s happening in the story which is something that I really liked as well.
I knew Noah Hawley best for show running and writing for the TV show Fargo on FX and I really enjoyed that show for a lot of the same reasons that I really enjoyed this book.
So if you’re someone who watches Fargo at all and you really enjoy that TV show, then you should definitely pick up this book because I feel like in both the show and the book, they both explore these really interesting characters and you sort of get pieces of information about this single event through different characters’ points of view.
And you get to see how different characters have an influence on a thing that you might not have realized until you see it from another character’s point of view.
And it’s sort of like this fun almost puzzle, almost mystery that you’re putting together.
But in the end it’s not really about the puzzle or the mystery, it’s just about seeing who these characters are and the choices that they’re making or not making.
I would, again, highly recommend it if you like character-driven stories.
If you go into this expecting like a really great mystery, don’t.
Because it’s not a really great mystery.
Like I said in my September wrap up, I kind of guessed what the ending was and I was kind of disappointed by the whole mystery aspect, like what caused the plane to go down.
But honestly I loved everything else about the story so much that I completely was just like, that’s fine with me.
I don’t really care if it was a dumb ending, these were great characters and I really enjoyed the experience of reading this book.
If you’ve read this book, feel free to leave a comment down below letting me know what you guys thought of it.
I know this one is kind of divisive, again, because the ending is not really super great and also it’s really slow moving and I don’t think people are expecting that going into it.
I was warned ahead of time that this was a slower-moving novel so I knew going into it not to expect like a super fast-paced thriller plot.
Or if you have any questions about this book or if you’ve read any of Noah Hawley’s other books, I’d love to hear about that as well.
I know he’s written a couple of others, but I don’t think I’ve like read anything about them or heard much about them.
So if you’ve read them and liked them definitely let me know down below.
Or if you didn’t like them, you can let me know that as well.
So yeah that’s all I have for now and thanks for reading.
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Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017RKCC5G
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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