It's All in How You Fall by Sarah Henning Pages: 320
Published by Poppy on May 31, 2022
Genres: contemporary, Young Adult
Source: ecopy from Publisher
Gymnast Caroline Kepler has three state balance beam titles, a new trick even most elites can’t do, and chronic, undeniable back pain. While she might never be an Olympian, she has dreams of leveling up to elite, making Nationals, and competing in college. But when one epic face-plant changes all that and Caroline’s back pain goes from chronic to career-ending, her dreams are shattered and her life is flipped upside down.
Enter Alex Zavala, a three-sport athlete who’s both incredibly cute and incredibly off-limits. He offers to give Caroline a crash course in all the sports she’s missed, and she has an offer for him in return: For every sport Alex teaches her, she’ll play matchmaker for him. Deal done, Caroline “dates” new sports with Alex for the rest of the summer, which is loads more fun than wallowing in despair. Just as Caroline starts to see herself as more than her past athletic successes, she picks up something she didn’t bargain for: a big fat crush on Alex. Turns out life was way easier when it was just layout-fulls and beam burns....
A contemporary young adult romance about moving on, finding your place, and recovering after life falls apart.
It’s All in How you Fall is a young adult contemporary romance by author Sarah Henning. This book was so adorable and so much fun, and on top of all of that I loved the message it sent. It’s All in How you Fall deals with a difficult topic that I have no personal experience with, but I can only imagine how hard it would be to deal with. Our main characters are athletes. Caroline is an almost elite level gymnast with chronic back pain, and a bad fall ends her gymnast career forever and she is left trying to figure out who she is without gymnastics. I loved exploring this concept because elite level athletes throw their whole lives into their sport, and it becomes how they identify themselves. So to have that ripped from them, they often don’t know what to do with their days.
Caroline was so relatable to me. I loved her instantly and I was rooting for her the entire book. When she runs into her brother’s friend Alex, I immediately loved him too. I can’t remember the last time I fell in love with two characters as instantly as I did these two. Alex is the sweetest book boyfriend I have ever met and he is so selfless and giving. He offers to help Caro try out different sports all summer until she finds something else she likes. Alex is a bit of a sports prodigy- he plays Soccer, Basketball and Tennis, but he is the best at Tennis. Watching Caro and Alex hang out and watching both of them learn more about who they are and what they want out of life, was beautiful. I loved this story. I loved the sweet romance, and I really really loved Caroline find out that she is more than just gymnastics. This story was fantastic, and I want everyone to read it!
Lisa Mandina (Lisa Loves Literature)
This one looks really good! After your review I definitely need to check it out. Thanks for sharing!