Lauren Oliver's young adult novel, "Before I Fall," takes readers on a captivating journey alongside Samantha Kingston, a popular high school senior forced to relive the same day over and over again – the day of her own death. Trapped in a time loop, Sam grapples with the consequences of her actions and the chance to confront her past mistakes.

The story unfolds through Sam's introspective narrative. Initially portrayed as self-absorbed and shallow, Sam undergoes a profound transformation as she relives February 12th. With each iteration, she awakens with a growing awareness of the pain she's inflicted on others and a desperate desire to make amends.

The novel's strength lies in its exploration of self-discovery and the ripple effect of our choices. As Sam interacts with classmates she previously disregarded, she uncovers hidden depths and vulnerabilities. The narrative poignantly portrays the impact of bullying and the importance of empathy and compassion. The repetitive structure creates a sense of urgency and allows readers to fully experience Sam's emotional rollercoaster.

When a private plane goes down over the ocean, the only survivors are a down on his luck painted and a 4-year-old boy. Why was the painter there, on a plane full of wealthy people? Why was he the one who survived? Was he behind the crash?

So many questions.

This story draws you in very quickly and is told through several different view points, showing how they got to the day of the crash, Before the Fall, and how their paths led to cross. I loved hearing in depth views from the lives of the characters. Rarely in a book do you get to know so much about the characters, let alone so many characters.

I give Before the Fall 4/5 stars.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to enjoy it more than I did. It just wasn't for me. I couldn't engage with the story or the characters.

This was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it. thanks for letting me have an advance copy. I'm new to this author.

Before the Fall did not work for me but then it did. I liked the writing style but then I didn't. One of the things that bugged me most was the conversational style that Noah Hawley used. His characters seemed unable to put coherent sentences together. More often than not they started saying something then went off on a tangent and started to say something else. I felt like the characters were interrupting their own sentences. It did not flow well and was hard to read. I did like how the mystery about why the plain crash happened was drawn out to the very last moment. I also liked that even though we are introduced to all 9 characters in the plane at the very beginning of the novel we don't actually get to know most of them until the final third of the book. These points however did not come early enough to save the book from getting a better rating. The book was okay but probably not one I would recommend to others.

Hawley is a powerful storyteller. This a good read, or if you can, listen to the audiobook. Noah Hawley knows how to keep a reader’s attention.

It starts promising, it reads fast and it's quick-paced, but the ending is a bit disappointing after all the build-up. The characters are interesting, and the plot reminded me of Lost (of course!). I wish the ending were better to live up to the rest of the novel.

I really wanted to love this book, but I just couldn’t. I enjoyed the way it was written from the different passengers points of view but then it just ended and it didn’t have a satisfying ending at all. I wanted more! It also felt like the author tried way too hard with all the descriptions and they just went on and on forever.

A plane full of high influencing rich people crashes. The survivors are a 4 year old boy and a painter, who is not one of the rich people. I was hooked just reading this. Who survives a plane crash? The idea of life after a crash and the why of the crash had me having to read this. One I started, I was anxious to get started, I could not stop. Scott and JJ were people who I cared about. I was invested in JJ finding a life again with his aunt. Scott needed to be found innocent and not be blamed for the crash. There was just so much that needed to be settled and solved.

The back stories of the characters that died in the crash were extremely interesting to me. Noah Hawley did an amazing job filling in the holes. I enjoyed how the characters were made real. They were characters that I could see with their families, I could see them running their companies and working their jobs, and I could see how people would miss them when they were gone. It was also interesting to see how the government agencies were forced to work together to solve the mystery. They had to decide if there was a crime or if it was an accident. I had my ideas, my hopes, and my prayers on what happen on that plane. I am happy to say that I did finally figure it out before the ending.

While this wasn’t a thriller of a book, this is a have to read book. I am going to ask my friends to read this just so I have someone to discuss it with.

I’ve had this one in my queue for a while and wasn’t sure if or when I’d get to it, but I’m certainly glad I did. First off, the writing is visual. Hawley can clearly spin a description and bring it to life the way a talented landscape artist captures the truth of a moment with the right bits of minutiae. When you step in for a closer look at the work of masters like Thomas Cole or Claude Lorrain, you see far off in the distance, even the things only hinted at. Hawley has a way of doing this with words. He develops a magnificent scene, suggesting all that lies beyond it. His writing is exquisite. I’m not surprised his MC is a painter.

For all the lush prose and philosophical rumination -- of which there is much, and much of it interesting -- I found myself questioning the thread of the story, though. This novel is pegged as a thriller but it’s really easy to feel apathetic about the mystery. The survivors are the ones a reader cares about. The others are set dressings. A plane crashes, most of the passengers die, and FBI and NTSB and other agencies work to recover the wreckage to try to determine what happened. Because … ? Well, the plot relies on one of the passengers being a man of import to make the search and recovery credible. But all this side story busy-ness -- each of the dead passengers gets a backstory -- is pointless to the nugget of truth, the miraculous survival, the awakening of Scott Burroughs. Well, okay the other characters serve Hawley’s story, some as red herrings, others as relevant, but really the gem here is in the opening (essentially, the crash), when the painter saves the boy. This section is gripping. It’s heartwarming. It’s chilling. Yet the aftermath we expect -- want -- pine for -- doesn’t come. Or at least is given short shrift because of the other characters’ stories.

And that’s part of it. At times I felt like I was reading bios of actors in a play. Some directors will suggest their actors write pages and pages of their character’s biography to really know the skin into which they’re crawling. Some of the chapters felt too much like this for my taste -- although, far better written, of course. There’s a lot of telling going on in places about characters we know little -- and care little -- about. As the plot unfolded, I grew less and less interested in the mystery of why the plane crashed and wanted to know more about how the survivors would recover. But maybe that’s just me. It’s certainly a credit to the writing and the heroic MC Hawley has patched together. Scott Burroughs is a masterpiece character. He’s perfect in all the right ways, which means imperfect in all the right ways, too. He’s likable and credible. I think that’s why I wished we’d gotten more of his story after the event. Retellings of his past or projections of his future aren’t quite as satisfying as honest to goodness moments in his present. In that way, Hawley missed the boat.

Artist Scott Burroughs almost misses the his plane. From Martha's vineyard, a wealthy media mogul and his family are flying a private jet to New York. The wife of the powerful family patriarch had befriended Scott not too long prior and had invited him to take the trip with them as long as they were heading to New York anyway. But only a bout fifteen minutes later, the plane crashes into the rolling ocean. Scott sees only the four-year-old child of the family still alive and struggling against the sea. He latches onto the boy and pulls him underwater to avoid the crashes of a wave, and then swims and pulls the boy in the direction he hopes is the shore. It's not an easy swim and Scott likely would have given up if he hadn't now been responsible for the boy as well. But the drowning death of his sister many years ago, and his subsequent swimming lessons have him determined to keep swimming.

But surviving the sea is only the first step in the aftermath of the plane crash. Scott will face a barrage of questions and insinuations as to what exactly happened. Being a struggling artist with only the remotest of connections to the family, what was he doing on that plane? Was he having an affair with the wealthy matriarch? And now, as he avoids the press and their questions and connects with the remaining family of the boy (who is set to inherit millions), is he trying to insert himself in the boy's life in order to capitalize on those millions?

Author Noah Hawley has given us a truly remarkable, though sad, commentary on our modern society. Every act of courage, every act of kindness, will be scrutinized and questioned by someone who is more interested in finding dirt and building ratings As a reading audience, we can't help but sympathize with Burroughs, who shows us the remarkable things a human can do when pushed and when a very life is on the line. And because we connect with him in this way, it gets us angry when he is facing unnecessary (or so we perceive) negative publicity. But Hawley does let us wonder, just a bit, if there isn't something about Burroughs that we don't know - something that might suggest he's not quite what he claims to be. And this is what drives us in the story.

The beginning and the ending here were quite strong, but the story sagged in the middle. We really weren't given enough new information or new story to keep us motivated and guessing through the middle of the book and it's this that keeps it from being a truly outstanding novel. It is worth reading however.

Looking for a good book? Before the Fall by Noah Hawley is a thrilling work of modern literature that captures the best and worst of humanity today.

I receive a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I found this to be a very enjoyable book, told from multiple points of view to add nuance to the events and the characters "before the fall" in thought-provoking ways. Strong narration pulls off the point of view shifts and Noah Hawley gives surprising depth to even minor characters as we find out what led to the tragedy.

Two passengers survive a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. One becomes an instant hero. The novel delves into the backstory of the dead as well as the relationship that develops between the two survivors.

Love the original concept. Love that the characters all seem so real and flawed.

But I think BEFORE THE FALL is a mystery/thriller I can recommend to non-thriller readers. "This," I will tell them, "is a thriller!" Actually I will mean, "This is what I always want thrillers to be."

The story line is simple: a small plane crashes with the uppercrust, the undercrust and their families and a pitiful painter. Only two survive and the thrills are what happened prior to and after "the fall". Loved it

A plane crashes, two survive. What is the story of each person on that plane? What caused the crash? How lives intersect, how interpretations put different spins on events. Contemplating life...

Good grief!

So... a plane crashes and all but two of the passengers die. Then, for the next 40% of the book - i.e., a couple of hundred pages - the author takes us back to show us that they were all hideous, money-obsessed, corrupt creeps. Suddenly my sorrow at the plane crash began to dissipate and I found that, instead of hoping some might have survived, I was seriously hoping a shark got them. I felt a bit sorry for the young girl who died, but frankly, with parents like hers, she'd have turned out awful anyway... (I promise I'd be more sympathetic if they were real people... 😉)

Seriously, I found the 46% that I read of this utterly tedious. Even the heroic rescue of the little boy by the sole adult survivor goes on and on for so long that all suspense is lost. And of course the first person narrative lets us know anyway that he makes it (or is a ghost, which would have been marginally worse, I suppose). Then we get huge long backstories of the dead people. Even if they hadn't all been obnoxious, the fact that I already knew they were dead made it hard for me to get any kind of emotional investment going.

And the characters are all straight from central casting. The corrupt businessman making his billions out of dodgy deals and being investigated by the FBI. The Foxs News style mogul who sets up a TV company to peddle populist ideas to the masses. The news presenter who harasses women and has sex with his interns over his desk. (Good grief - could he have got any more clichés in? Er... yes...) The ex-model wife of one of the above - sorry, they all merged into one mass of ughness so I can't remember which bimbo was married to which billionaire.

The good guy is of course not a billionaire - he's a sensitive, struggling artistic type. Naturally.

Maybe if the writing hadn't been full of bad metaphors and faux profundity; or if it hadn't been written in clunky present tense; or if 90% of the padding had been stripped out; or if we hadn't lost touch with the good guy, the only one it would be in any way possible to care about, for chapters at a time - maybe then, it might have been good. But it still wouldn't be a thriller because, excuse me for being pedantic, thrillers should thrill.

Abandoned at 46%.

Before the Fall was great...a fast read, but not forgettable, like so many fast reads are. A thriller/mystery that gets deeper into characters than many thrillers or mysteries do. Will definitely be recommending it.

Nine people get on a private jet for a short half-hour trip. Four are a family; the father the head of a news channel, the wife staying home with the children who are a girl who is nine and a son, four. The father is the person who owns the plane. Two are a couple who knows the family. The husband of this couple is big in investment banking and maybe about to be indicted for shady practises. Then there are the crew; pilot, co-pilot and stewardess. There is security man who travels with the family at all time due to threats. Then there is Scott, a painter who has met the wife and taken her last-minute invitation to ride with them and avoid the ferry.

Just a quick trip. But sixteen minutes out, something goes wrong and the world changes forever. The plane crashes. Scott somehow survives and after minutes of searching, finds that the son has also survived. He manages to get them both to shore by swimming all night with the boy on his back. A hero, everyone says.

Now the craziness begins. No one is sure what happened, not even Scott. His memories are piecemeal and come in small flashes. Several government agencies are involved in the investigation and without the plane and bodies, their work is just guesswork also. With the father being a huge media presence, there is even more publicity and press than would usually happen. With no facts to be had, speculation and rumors are rampant. Will the truth emerge?

Noah Hawley has written an amazingly readable novel. It received the Edgar Award for 2017 for the Best Novel as well as the 2017 Thrillers Award for Best Novel. Most readers will know the author best as the creator of the hit TV series, Fargo. The interplay of the characters and slow revealing of the mystery through the backstory of each individual character draws out the tension and suspense. This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Scott Burroughs is a struggling artist and recovering alcoholic who is invited to fly on a private plane from Martha’s Vineyard to New York. The invitation came from the wife of a media mogul who made millions by offering alternative viewpoints to the major traditional news outlets. Also invited was a financial businessman who’s under investigation for his business dealings. Tragedy strikes and the plane crashes into the ocean with only two survivors – Scott and the 4-year-old son of the media mogul. Scott performs a herculean rescue of the little boy by swimming about 12 miles to shore with a dislocated shoulder. At first he’s hailed as a hero but soon questions surface and the ugly face of scandal-mongering celebrity journalism rears its head. Hawley raises numerous possibilities about the cause of the crash, giving readers background context on the passengers and the crew. They each have their stories and mysteries that add to the intrigue and give readers plenty to conjecture about. This could have been a great book except for the abrupt ending that fails to tie up plot lines and satisfy readers who become invested in the survivors and those around them. The buildup deserves a more comprehensive conclusion. Still, a book that will hold readers in its grip and keep them guessing.