At first, it was rather shocking. I listened to my friend's praise and borrowed it from the library without reading the back cover. Somehow I thought T.J. was older, but he was only sixteen, so I almost stopped reading. Now I'm glad I didn't because it was a beautiful story - beautiful, horrible and so exciting. 
Because T.J. seemed more mature, the love story began years later, and it wasn't "typical" teacher student romance (they were more like friends), I was able to read and even enjoy the story. Author took a very sensitive theme and turned it into an interesting but realistic story. The main characters had a lot of challenges on the island (mother nature is wonderful but scary as hell) but I liked that they also had to face difficulties after returning to civilization. Anna and T.J. had to make an effort to have a relationship and get used to the "real" world. Great book.

Cover of the Estonian edition

A special thank you to Grand Central and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

From the award-winning and talented Noah Hawley, creator of Fargo, comes the next blockbuster, BEFORE THE FALL - Spellbinding!

Hooking you from page one, and every heart-pounding riveting moment, to the final conclusion. A mysterious plane crash--the wreckage-the before and after the fall---with only two survivors. How do people end up in the same place at the same time?

A small private plane, leaving a balmy Martha’s Vineyard, at a scheduled time of 10pm for New York. A nine-seat Ospry. A pilot, a first officer, a flight attendant.

Everyone has their path and made their choices. None of them has any idea, sixteen minutes later, the passengers will crash into the brutal sea. Disappear into the ocean. There was a heavy coastal fog three hours prior to take off, creeping in.

Eleven people are on board However, the only survivors are Scott Burroughs, the painter, and a four-year- old boy. He thinks there has to be other survivors. How can a plane crash and one person survive? What about the women and the children? Did it break up on impact or crack open—the water, what about sharks.

He is a swimmer, (past story here) and no stranger to the sea. Martha’s Vineyard is seven miles from Cape Cod, but their plane was headed to JFK—how far are they from shore? He panics, and hears a child crying, clinging to a seat cushion thirty feet away. A boy, four years old. A toddler.

Cleverly crafted, with vivid details, and alternating chapters (broken out by person, birth, date, and backstory) and events leading up to the crash, the aftermath, of passengers and crew - passions, and secrets. What caused the plane to crash and why this particular group of elite people? Criminal, or accidental?

On board: David Bateman, President of ALC News and his family. Ben Kipling and his wife, Sarah. Kipling was a senior partner at Watt, Hathoway, the financial giant. SEC investigation? David chartered the flight and he and his family—wife Maggie and two children, Rachel (9 yrs old) and JJ (4 yrs. old) were on board.

Security, Pilot, CoPilot, Flight Attendant: Gil Baruch, James Melody, Emma Lightner, Charlie Busch. The odd man out, Scott the painter.

The media wants to know why Scott was on board? He had met them on the island a few weeks prior. He had to go to New York and Maggie befriended him---invited him to fly with them. He was a painter and lived on the Vineyard and was going to meet with his rep and discuss some gallery shows. (The flawed, Scott makes the story).

Was it luck? Was there anything lucky about surviving a tragedy? Is he a hero? He is now the story. However, all that matters, is the boy. A bond develops. The boy is an instant millionaire hundreds of times over who will never want for anything. Scott saved him. Is Scott a victim, hero, survivor, or all three?

An accident. Sabotage? A terrorist attack? Each person had a life, a story. The crew members or the passengers. Motive?

Scott, a simple man, penniless with a three-legged dog, a nobody painter who has not shown a painting in five years ends up on a luxury plane with two of the richest men in New York? A media frenzy. The prior week he was an ordinary man, anonymous. Now he is a character in a detective story. The Last Man to See the Victims Alive, or Savior of the Child.

Each day he answers questions by the FBI, and NTSB, going over the details, and the headlines. A broken man with modest ambitions, a former blackout drunk who lives moment to moment, hand to mouth. He survived a plane crash and saved a kid, and people want to make out like he was a hero. No privacy. His life is front and center.
Scott and little JJ –the center focus of this extraordinary suspense (my favorite part). People have died-families and children, and possible murder.

An FBI who wonders how many more years he can do this job, and how many more tragedies he can stomach. He is an engineer who is beginning to believe that the world is fundamentally broken.

“Life is a series of decisions and reactions. It is the things you do and the things that are done to you. And then it's over."

From the crew to each passenger, the investigators, and the media dissect Scott’s entire life even his paintings, searching for answers.

Character-driven, an intriguing multi-layered look at truth, greed, secrets, and relationships.

There are many takes on BEFORE THE FALL –an exploration of complex human dynamics, from fate, luck, betrayal, mortality, family, heroes, obsessed media—a compelling mystery tragedy suspense of humanity. The title is fitting with multiple meanings.

Emmy, Golden Globe, and Peabody Award–winning television producer and screenwriter Hawley’s fifth novel is one to move to the top of your reading list!

Having this book for about 1 or 2 years, and trying to read the book about 2 or 3 times in that time span, I wasn't really looking forward to reading it again. But it was for a challenge of one of my groups, so I decided to go for it.

The book is satire, and you can see that pretty much immediately, it takes Reality TV, Sponsorship by corporations, products and things about beauty and mashes that all together to make this book.

There are little side notes, commercial breaks (highly annoying) and tells us about the characters through forms submitted for the pageant.

The book itself, starts of slowly and the characters are quite annoying at the beginning, but soon, about half way, they start to become more awesome, you learn more about them. And yeah, though I wasn't thinking I would, but I started to love the book.

The characters are awesome, from cute, beautiful girls with only one thing on their mind: beauty, they turn to kick-ass babes who know how to do stuff. They make huts, fishing lines and a lot more!
Also who can say no to a girl when she is carrying a flame-thrower? :)

Of course they are not the only ones around. We also got the Corporation wandering about, a cute guy and last but not least: Sexy Pirates... yes you heard me right. Sexy, bodacious pirates. *rolls eyes*

The pirates, well, let's just say they brought an interesting thing to the island. And it was fun to see how all the girls went from kick-ass to girly girls who batted their eye-lashes and acted giggly. Such a nice stereotype.

In overall, the book had it's up and downs. But the ups are more prominent than the downs. The only things I didn't like were the little notes at the bottom of the page, it would have been better if they were featured at the end of the book, less distraction. Also the whole commercial stuff, some were funny, but most were just lame and not interesting to me.

I would say, read this book, give it a try. If you like satire, and everything from beauty to corporations being trolled/joked about, survival and beauty queens, some Hollywood scenes then you will like this book!

I will also mention that this book is clearly not for tweens/teens. I would recommend this book for 16 or 17+, this due to some slight sexual scenes.

And as an extra some fun quotes:

“You want to know what pain is? Try running out of Advil when you've got a Category Five period. I've had cramps that would make grown men beg for a bullet between the eyes."

“Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.”

“I hate this place,” Tiara whimpered. “It’s super creepy. Like a haunted Chuck E. Cheese’s where the games all want to kill you and you never get your pizza.”