In It’s All In How You Fall, the main character Caroline Kepler is a gymnast a heart. It is all she ever thinks about and her goal is to finally make it to Nationals. This goal keeps getting pushed aside due to her chronic back pain. This year though she is determined to make it happen and to learn a new trick on the balance beam that not even most Olympians can do. All of this sounds good, right? And it is until one practice where she has the most epic of falls and finds out that the chronic pain is now permanently career ending.
To say Caroline is heartbroken would be an understatement. She has lived and breathed gymnastics. Her best friends are in gymnastics. And her father is dating her gymnastics coach. It’s like gymnastics is everywhere she turns. She needs a distraction and she needs one fast. Enter Alex Zavala – her brother’s best friend. Alex offers to teach her one sport a week and in return she offers to play matchmaker between him and one of her best friends. Easy peezy lemon squeeze, right?
I loved Alex and Caroline’s sports “dates”. Spending most of her life so far in gymnastics has made flexible but, she really does not have the skill for other sports at first. I laughed as she tried out each one finding things that she liked about them and things she more or less hated. Alex is so supportive of her. I knew early on that his feelings for Caroline were changing perhaps even before he did. It was in the way he talked to her and listened as she expressed her frustrations. It was so sweet.
Meanwhile, Caroline is completely blind to his changing feelings and still trying to play match maker. There were a few times where I wanted to be like “girl, look right in front of you.” Especially since it was becoming obvious her feelings were changing too. Her best friends were real with her and could also see what she was denying. For the most part they are good friends to Caroline but, expectedly pull away when she is trying to avoid anything having to do with gymnastics. This hurts her but honestly it was expected for me that they felt abandoned.
It’s All In How You Fall really is a sweet story about losing a piece of yourself but, finding another piece to the gap. The dynamic between Caroline and Alex is believable; and I felt that all the younger characters fit into what I would consider the young adult world. Their friendships never seemed forced but ebbed and flowed just like a real friendship would. Oh, and if you’re a sport fan, the references though out are pretty great.
Rating: 4 Stars
**I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**
welcome to the zoo! 