{book report} before the fall

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley (4.5/5)

“This book is about a small plane crashing with two fancy business moguls on it. Also in attendance were their families and a down-on-his-luck painter. Only the painter and a four-year-old boy survive. The narrative winds back and surges forward in order to examine the events leading up to the crash and the consequences after. Was it by chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something more sinister at work?”

This book had me hooked from the beginning. If I were to recommend thrillers to non-thriller readers, this book is it. I loved how the author built the story. It is fast-paced, character-driven story and makes you pause and think about the role the media plays in trajedy stories.

I loved that the dialogue were smart and witty.

Do NOT read this on a plane. But once you’re between travels, by all means pick this one up.

Memorable Quotes:

“Everyone has their own path. The choices they’ve made. How any two people end up in the same place at the same time is a mystery. You get on an elevator with a dozen strangers. You ride a bus, wait in line for the bathroom. It happens every day. To try to predict the places we’ll go and the people we’ll meet would be pointless.”

“You have kids and you think I made you, so we’re the same, but it’s not true. You just get to live with them for a while and maybe help them figure things out.”

“It’s hard to be sad when you’re being useful. And he liked that idea. That service to others brought happiness. It was self-involvement that led to depression, to spiraling questions about the meaning of things.”

“Life is made of these moments – of one’s physical being moving through time and space – and we string them together into a story, and that story becomes our life.”