📝 What is The Fallen Fruit About?:
On a rainy day in May 1964, history professor Cecily Bridge-Davis begins to search for the sixty-five acres of land she inherited from her father’s family. The quest leads her to uncover a dark secret: In every generation, one offspring from each Bridge family unit vanishes–and is mysteriously whisked back in time.
📚 Genre: science fiction
🎧 Format: ARC E-Book
💞 Feels: ⭐⭐.5
This book was difficult for me to read. It took me way too long to get through this book. It was messy and I wasn’t ever really sure where it was going…even up to the last few pages it didn’t feel like it was concluding. I guess in the sense of a time travel story, it wasn’t concluding since this family curse is a time loop that ends where it begins and vice versa. I wish I had known that when I started reading it.
The Fallen Fruit requires an adjustment of your expectations (if you read the full book description). It’s more of a vibe than a narrative tale consisting of a beginning, middle and end. The story was marketed as being similar to Kindred; I think the only similarities are superficial. There are characters who time travel and meet their ancestors in the past, but that is where the similarities end.
The time travel elements feel like an unfinished idea. It was such an ambitious and intriguing idea – it kept me reading. There wasn’t any payoff, though, which made me very frustrated and confused about how to rate the book when I was near the end.
The character studies were interesting, but it was difficult to figure out how certain characters were important to the mystery of the family curse. Only to find out in the end none of the questions I had were going to be answered. What caused the curse? Why do family members travel? Do the rules actually keep them safe? In fact more questions would come up because even more mysteries came up at the end of the book!
Getting technical
When I started the book it gave me Kindred vibes, so I was hesitant to jump into the emotional turmoil. I didn’t connect with the characters from The Fallen Fruit in the same way that I connected with Dana and Rufus. I was looking at it as a mystery to be solved and was left feeling unsatisfied by the end. Like what did I just read? What was the point? And why did it take me so long to get through these many disparate stories?
There are too many characters in this book. Or rather the switch between characters and narrative focus was murky at the beginning of the book. I was fully invested in hearing about Cecily’s story and then suddenly the story switched to Amelia, and then Luke & Sabrina, then Rebecca, then back to Cecily and Emily.
By the time we get to Cecily’s second section I was happy to finally solve the mystery and find out why we had met Amelia, Luke, Sabrina and Rebecca. I’m still not really sure of what the point of Rebecca’s story was. I wish there had been a better explanation of why we were meeting certain characters. I’m thinking as I reflect on the book construction that we were meeting characters as Cecily was researching her ancestors. I think if Cecily had stayed present in the story throughout as a narrator, it would’ve been more inherent why we were meeting certain members of her family and not others. Perhaps that would’ve made the story form more appealing.
You’ll like this book, if…
You’ll like this book if you enjoy character studies and are okay with some mysteries not being solved. If you can look at the book sections as individual tales on their own, the book will be enjoyable.
✅ Spinoff novella nomination:
I would be interested to hear Owen’s story. But only to resolve another mystery that I wanted to see concluded.
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments.
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