The new school year at Florence University, nestled in the Pennsylvania countryside, dawns bright with the possibilities that only a fresh start can bring. For three students in particular, it will be a year unlike any other, one that will alter the courses of their lives forever. There is Ian, the film buff trying to figure out his life—and how to catch the eye of the football player he can’t stop fantasizing about; Casey, the local football star whose future off the field is frustratingly uncertain; and Haile, the classical-music prodigy seeking refuge from a past life so that she may start anew as a singer-songwriter. Together the trio will form a fateful friendship, recounted through alternating first-person narratives. Sexy, fast-paced, and layered with intimate insight about life’s most formative years, The Fall is a compelling and contemporary coming-of-age story about what happens when we are forced for the first time to really confront who we are and who we want to become.
The Fall
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Award Winning Finalist in the 'Fiction: Gay & Lesbian' category of the 2013 International Book Awards
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
About the Author
Ryan Quinn attended the University of Utah, where he was an NCAA champion and an All-American athlete. After graduation, he worked for five years in New York’s book-publishing industry. A native of Alaska, he now lives in Los Angeles. The Fall is his first novel.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By Tommy D
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
This is the story of three students all coming to terms with themselves and their futures whilst at University in Florence, Pennsylvania.
There is Haile who has left New York and more importantly her controlling mother in order to find herself as a musician and not a prodigy violin player as was her mother's intention. She has been living for so long under the matriarchal thrall that now she is at a loss as to where to begin, but art history class seems like as good a place as any, and with an enigmatic celebrity for a Professor she feels she has made the right choice,. Then in walks blue eyed Ian.
Ian is struggling with a controlling patriarch who is a leading football coach and has taken it as a slap in the face that Ian not only has dropped football, and moved away but has also taken up tennis! What he does not know is that Ian is gay and has moved away from his parents to a seeming backwater University to discover how to be himself. He is going to room with life long friend and football jock Casey.
Casey meanwhile is the golden kid, captain of the football team with the perfect WAG girlfriend and studying medicine as a back up plan. He is slowly coming to the realisation that his air head girlfriend is with him for what he represents as a trophy boy friend rather than who he is. The constant struggling to live up to the impossibly macho stereo type is driving him nuts. He also realises that despite the hype that all too often surrounds sporty types, he is never going to hit the big time.
We also have the back story of a homophobic crime that resulted in the suicide of a previous student and what drove him to take his own life, all three students and the dead boy's stories will become inter mingled and in many ways help define who they are to become.
This is a debut for Ryan Quinn and some have criticised this for being posited as a gay coming out tale, when it is actually advertised as a 'coming of age tale', so it was not an issue for me. It is a well written and in many aspects compelling read and I did get engaged with all of the characters. The one I felt could have been given more fleshing out was Jamie from the coffee shop, but that is hardly a deal breaker. Generally speaking you can tell care and effort has gone into relaying the very different personalities of each of the participants and as such this is an exceedingly good first novel. I would be more than happy to read his next one which I hope is not too far away.
There is Haile who has left New York and more importantly her controlling mother in order to find herself as a musician and not a prodigy violin player as was her mother's intention. She has been living for so long under the matriarchal thrall that now she is at a loss as to where to begin, but art history class seems like as good a place as any, and with an enigmatic celebrity for a Professor she feels she has made the right choice,. Then in walks blue eyed Ian.
Ian is struggling with a controlling patriarch who is a leading football coach and has taken it as a slap in the face that Ian not only has dropped football, and moved away but has also taken up tennis! What he does not know is that Ian is gay and has moved away from his parents to a seeming backwater University to discover how to be himself. He is going to room with life long friend and football jock Casey.
Casey meanwhile is the golden kid, captain of the football team with the perfect WAG girlfriend and studying medicine as a back up plan. He is slowly coming to the realisation that his air head girlfriend is with him for what he represents as a trophy boy friend rather than who he is. The constant struggling to live up to the impossibly macho stereo type is driving him nuts. He also realises that despite the hype that all too often surrounds sporty types, he is never going to hit the big time.
We also have the back story of a homophobic crime that resulted in the suicide of a previous student and what drove him to take his own life, all three students and the dead boy's stories will become inter mingled and in many ways help define who they are to become.
This is a debut for Ryan Quinn and some have criticised this for being posited as a gay coming out tale, when it is actually advertised as a 'coming of age tale', so it was not an issue for me. It is a well written and in many aspects compelling read and I did get engaged with all of the characters. The one I felt could have been given more fleshing out was Jamie from the coffee shop, but that is hardly a deal breaker. Generally speaking you can tell care and effort has gone into relaying the very different personalities of each of the participants and as such this is an exceedingly good first novel. I would be more than happy to read his next one which I hope is not too far away.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars
87 reviews
54 of 58 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
3.5, but not a 4
Jun 20 2012
By T. Szymanowski
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I just finished Ryan Quinn's, The Fall, and I can't remember the last time I was this ambivalent. It wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't good as in goooood, either. Clearly, it was much better for many of the reviewers but here is where I am coming from.
Pros: I appreciated the author's writing style. His story telling was solid; prose was generally straight forward with a few flashes of poetical strength; a number of the characters were believable; the plot was just twisty enough to keep things interesting and me guessing; the aspects of university life were realistic (I work in higher education); the varied voices telling the story were clever and not gimmicky; the author's familiarity with the aspects of gay struggles seemed legit; though not everything resolved at the end of the book, enough did to feel a sense of satisfaction at the conclusion.
Cons: All the turns of events were a bit too neatly packaged - "coincidence" in story writing probably needs more restraint than license, lest the whole thing becomes a little too far fetched; Haile's character was the least believable...too magical, too controlled, too wild, too desirable, too calculating, too talented, too tragic; too philosophical...; the highly unlikely mid-season coaching change that brought Ian's parents to the U was clunky and forced (part of the coincidence overload); the predictable occurrences that prevented Ian from telling his parents; etc.
When I put the book in context for what it is (the author's first book), it is an impressive piece of work that is generally well written and a decent story. Admittedly, I brought some assumptions to it that have caused me to be less enthused about book than I expected (for instance, I had some kind of notion from the reviews and promotion that it was akin, from a modern perspective, to A Separate Peace by John Knowels). In the end it was pop fiction with a predominant element of "the gay stuggle" that interests me no more than, say, reading about NASCAR does. Not a judgmental thing...just very little interest.
Pros: I appreciated the author's writing style. His story telling was solid; prose was generally straight forward with a few flashes of poetical strength; a number of the characters were believable; the plot was just twisty enough to keep things interesting and me guessing; the aspects of university life were realistic (I work in higher education); the varied voices telling the story were clever and not gimmicky; the author's familiarity with the aspects of gay struggles seemed legit; though not everything resolved at the end of the book, enough did to feel a sense of satisfaction at the conclusion.
Cons: All the turns of events were a bit too neatly packaged - "coincidence" in story writing probably needs more restraint than license, lest the whole thing becomes a little too far fetched; Haile's character was the least believable...too magical, too controlled, too wild, too desirable, too calculating, too talented, too tragic; too philosophical...; the highly unlikely mid-season coaching change that brought Ian's parents to the U was clunky and forced (part of the coincidence overload); the predictable occurrences that prevented Ian from telling his parents; etc.
When I put the book in context for what it is (the author's first book), it is an impressive piece of work that is generally well written and a decent story. Admittedly, I brought some assumptions to it that have caused me to be less enthused about book than I expected (for instance, I had some kind of notion from the reviews and promotion that it was akin, from a modern perspective, to A Separate Peace by John Knowels). In the end it was pop fiction with a predominant element of "the gay stuggle" that interests me no more than, say, reading about NASCAR does. Not a judgmental thing...just very little interest.
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
More!
Feb 9 2011
By Nathaniel R. Brown
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I found this book hard to put down, and at the end I was carrying it around, trying to grab a few moments to block everything out and get back to these very real characters. What Quinn has done is to construct a novel that is genuinely character-driven: we care about these people - and virtually all of the action flows with great naturalness from who they are, and from their inter-relationships. In addition, Quinn writes very convincing, real-feeling dialogue.
It's hard to imagine that this is a first-time novel. I look forward eagerly to see what he produces next. If I have given The Fall four stars, it is because I know there will be more, and even better books to come. I hope so. This one's a keeper!
Warmly recommended!
It's hard to imagine that this is a first-time novel. I look forward eagerly to see what he produces next. If I have given The Fall four stars, it is because I know there will be more, and even better books to come. I hope so. This one's a keeper!
Warmly recommended!
38 of 46 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
So hard to put down!
Jan 30 2011
By chonathon
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I loathe the NYC subways, but I have to admit my commute went by way too fast while reading The Fall. I missed my stop on several occasions because I was so wrapped up in the amazing writing of Ryan Quinn. It is hard to believe this is a first novel. Quinn masters the voices of each of the three main characters perfectly and captures the very unique time of the undergrad years so well that I was forced into nostalgia over and over. Quinn was able to weave all of the characters stories so nicely (even the gay portion) without any one story taking over. So much more than a gay narrative!
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 87 reviews
4.2 out of 5 stars
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Fiction > Gay
- Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Coming Out
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Gay & Lesbian > Gay
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
