Stephen Goodwin

I’m not a big fan of books who toot their own horns but when is says, “Breaking Her Fall sweeps irresistibly forward to its wrenching, and redemptive conclusion,” it’s the truth. If there was one book I’ve liked to date this year over all the others, it’s this one.

A lot of books I’ve read over the post three months have dealt with a mother’s relationship with their child (i.e. Perfect Match, Odd Mom Out) and it was a nice change to read a book about a father and his show more relationship with his daughter.

Breaking Her Fall is one of those books that I couldn’t put down. But the book isn’t also just about Tucker and Kat trying to fix the damage from July 13th. It’s about their neighbor Lily and her struggles with her teenage daughter, and Kat’s best friend, Abby. It’s about Tucker and his inability to love. It’s about life.

“I have never liked to find myself on the side of the censors, the moralists and sanctimonious prigs, the prurient and righteous crusaders who wear their outrage as a badge of honor and virtue.” (pg. 55)

“Every now and then,. a father would make a joke-a bad joke, a nervous joke-about chastity belts or tower rooms where he girls could be locked up, but I suppose we all regard ourselves as too enlightened or too highly evolved to admit how frightening it was to watch our daughters come of age, to develop hips and breasts and turn into young women at a time when the juggernaut of popular culture seemed to bear down on them with the relentless message that they could fulfill themselves a dopey sex kittens with glitter on their eyelids and rings in their belly buttons.” (pg. 95) show less

An intriguing read about the strained relationship between a teenage girl (Kat) and her father (Tucker), after she makes a horrible mistake at a pool party and her father, a more serious one when he goes there to collect her. The teenagers in this book are realistic as are the parents. The relationship between Tucker and Lily (Kat's best friend Abby's mom) is the only disappointment.

A divorced Washington father brutally attacks a boy who his 14 year old daughter voluntarily or involuntarily engaged in oral sex with, setting a chain of events in motion that threatens to unravel his family. A realistic look at imperfect teenagers and imperfect parents, and how trying your best sometimes ends up with the worst possible end, but how trying is the most important part.

I read this book awhile ago and found the story really compelling. Since that time I've looked for other books by this author and haven't found any that were written since this one. He has some other things written earlier. I wonder what he's up to and if he's working on something.