Official Review: Fallen by D.P. Conway
Posted: 24 Nov 2019, 08:25
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Fallen" by D.P. Conway.]
Fallen by D.P. Conway, is the story of Nikolas Cruz—where he came from, what influenced him to behave the way he did and how he grew up to be a school shooter.
Imagine being the most hated boy on the block. Nikolas certainly was. From the time he was very young, he did things to injure other people and landed up alienating himself entirely. Nikolas could never understand where the voice that told him to do these things came from. But the dark angel watching over him knew exactly what her mission was. Nikolas and his younger brother Zachary were both adopted, and his biological mother claimed that his father was an angel. But as it turns out, not the good kind. As Nikolas moved through his school career, his lack of social understanding hindered his ability to make friends or form relationships. This led him to react impulsively when he thought people were just out to hurt him, whether against them or actual self-harm. As his behaviour spiralled out of control and the authorities were found ill-equipped to handle his actions, Nikolas went on a shooting spree. The consequences of which were devastating.
The interesting concept in this book is that the demons inside Nikolas’s head are real demons. That and the fact that his ancestry is half-bad makes you think a little more about what drives a person to do what they do. The book is a work of fiction based on actual events and the idea that someone could be as motivated to do what they did without forming the actual decisions themselves makes you think. A lot of time in the book is spent on Nikolas’s youth, but it also felt like a lot was missing. Especially when it came to what happened to his brother after the shooting or even how Nikolas’s story turned out. Without giving away a spoiler, his mother’s story and where she landed up could have been elaborated on too. The children were adopted through a religious group called the Order, but why Roger (Nikolas’s adoptive father) is affiliated with it or where the children, in particular, come from is never expanded on. It was also crazy to see how badly the authorities handled the situation and the impact the decisions of so-called responsible leaders had on the loss of lives.
There were a lot of editing mistakes in the book. These ranged from punctuation errors like quotation marks used in the wrong places (direct speech not given quotation marks and vice versa) to incorrect punctuation with action tags, to spelling mistakes, to missing prepositions and plural issues (e.g. five day later). My biggest gripe was the amount of POV jumps within paragraphs and you went from one person’s perspective straight into another’s. While I enjoyed the style of writing, I found the layout of the story bitty. The author has highlighted incidents in Nikolas’s life to show things that influenced him, but in doing so it became almost like a numbered list at times and some parts were extremely short and some extremely long.
The story itself is obviously of a disturbing nature, and the fact that there is some animal abuse, swearing, as well as the shooting violence, could put some people off. What the story does do well though, is advocate inclusion when it comes to the transgender communities in schools, as well as highlights the effect of depression and the ramifications of poor decision-making. I’m taking one star off for the editing but giving Fallen by D.P. Conway three out of four stars as I thought the contents of the story were thought-provoking. I think anybody with an interest in angels and demons or likes to look at the psychological makeup of people would be interested in this.
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Fallen
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Fallen by D.P. Conway, is the story of Nikolas Cruz—where he came from, what influenced him to behave the way he did and how he grew up to be a school shooter.
Imagine being the most hated boy on the block. Nikolas certainly was. From the time he was very young, he did things to injure other people and landed up alienating himself entirely. Nikolas could never understand where the voice that told him to do these things came from. But the dark angel watching over him knew exactly what her mission was. Nikolas and his younger brother Zachary were both adopted, and his biological mother claimed that his father was an angel. But as it turns out, not the good kind. As Nikolas moved through his school career, his lack of social understanding hindered his ability to make friends or form relationships. This led him to react impulsively when he thought people were just out to hurt him, whether against them or actual self-harm. As his behaviour spiralled out of control and the authorities were found ill-equipped to handle his actions, Nikolas went on a shooting spree. The consequences of which were devastating.
The interesting concept in this book is that the demons inside Nikolas’s head are real demons. That and the fact that his ancestry is half-bad makes you think a little more about what drives a person to do what they do. The book is a work of fiction based on actual events and the idea that someone could be as motivated to do what they did without forming the actual decisions themselves makes you think. A lot of time in the book is spent on Nikolas’s youth, but it also felt like a lot was missing. Especially when it came to what happened to his brother after the shooting or even how Nikolas’s story turned out. Without giving away a spoiler, his mother’s story and where she landed up could have been elaborated on too. The children were adopted through a religious group called the Order, but why Roger (Nikolas’s adoptive father) is affiliated with it or where the children, in particular, come from is never expanded on. It was also crazy to see how badly the authorities handled the situation and the impact the decisions of so-called responsible leaders had on the loss of lives.
There were a lot of editing mistakes in the book. These ranged from punctuation errors like quotation marks used in the wrong places (direct speech not given quotation marks and vice versa) to incorrect punctuation with action tags, to spelling mistakes, to missing prepositions and plural issues (e.g. five day later). My biggest gripe was the amount of POV jumps within paragraphs and you went from one person’s perspective straight into another’s. While I enjoyed the style of writing, I found the layout of the story bitty. The author has highlighted incidents in Nikolas’s life to show things that influenced him, but in doing so it became almost like a numbered list at times and some parts were extremely short and some extremely long.
The story itself is obviously of a disturbing nature, and the fact that there is some animal abuse, swearing, as well as the shooting violence, could put some people off. What the story does do well though, is advocate inclusion when it comes to the transgender communities in schools, as well as highlights the effect of depression and the ramifications of poor decision-making. I’m taking one star off for the editing but giving Fallen by D.P. Conway three out of four stars as I thought the contents of the story were thought-provoking. I think anybody with an interest in angels and demons or likes to look at the psychological makeup of people would be interested in this.
******
Fallen
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon