Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos

I'm part of the TLC tour for Marisa de los Santos's latest paperback release this morning.

It's been six years since Cat, Pen, and Will last saw each other. The three friends were virtually inseparable throughout college but each went their separate ways afterwards. Now, though, Pen and Will have both received an email from Cat who wants them to meet her at their college reunion. In the email, Cat apologizes and asks for their help. Pen, a single mother who's father has recently passed away, and Will, an author, both rush to meet Cat only to discover that she's missing. As they come together to search for their lost friend, they face the things that have happened in the past six years and the things that initially tore them apart. 

In one part of the book, a character describes Pen, Cat, and Will as engaging in conversation bumper cars. Not only was this description highly amusing, but it's a good way to describe de los Santos's banter-y writing style as well. While I actually came to love this aspect of the book, I found myself losing the thread of the narrative the later the evening became -- not a good book to read as you're nodding off to sleep, in other words.

Pen in particular is a very engaging character in this story as was her daughter, Augusta. I'd like to say Will was equally engaging but he never got as much page time as Pen. And Cat is there in the form of recollections for the most part, so the only things we really learn about her are through Pen and Will's memories.

Falling Together is a sweet story and a fairly easy one to get into once the reunion hits. I sort of felt as though the narrative rambled a bit leading up to that. For me, it felt as though I'd been dropped into the narrative midstream. Obviously this is kind of the case -- the story begins after the friends have split and backtracks to their meeting and the story of their trio. Things just didn't come together for me until Pen and Will actually reunited. It's possible, though, that because of all the lead in to the actual reunion of the characters in question, that I was simply too antsy to get to the meat of the story.

To see what others thought, visit the official tour page here and check out the other posts.

For more on Marisa de los Santos, check out her Facebook page here. And Falling Together is a Target Book Club Pick for October!