The Fall Risk by Abby Jimenez
It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and Charlotte and Seth are not looking for romance. Armed with emotional-support bear spray, Charlotte is in self-imposed isolation and on guard from men. Having a stalker can do that to a person’s nerves. Just across the hall and giving off woodsy vibes is Seth, a recently divorced arborist. As in today recently. Heights, he’s fine with. Trust? Not so much. But when disaster traps them one flight up and no way down, an outrageously precarious predicament forces a tree-loving guy and a rattled girl next door to embrace their captivity. Soon their defenses are breaking away. Considering how close they both are to the edge, Charlotte and Seth could be in danger of falling—in love.
Review: This was a really cute, novella length romance. Despite being only 82 pages long, the characters were well developed and the story felt fully formed. While the forced proximity felt a bit improbable (how likely it is that two people would be trapped upstairs in their apartment?? Wouldn't they have heard them demolishing the old staircase?), it did provide the perfect opportunity for them to spend time together when they otherwise would very much not have. Both Charlotte and Seth seemed like lovely characters with great chemistry. And bonus points for Seth apparently being extremely attractive; in the book Charlotte describes him as looking like a brown-eyed Brandon Sklenar. Loved how specific this image was so I could imagine him in my head ha.
The dark side of this novella is that the main character Charlotte has a dangerous stalker that has impacted her life in multiple ways. She is fearful to go outside and is constantly on alert. It's awful to imagine living in such fear, constantly having to move, and being literally trapped in your own home for your safety. I appreciated Jimenez putting a spotlight on a real and dangerous phenomenon: "I was furious at the system that allowed this. The law enforcement and courts that didn't protect me, the mental health support systems that weren't in place to help George before he became who he was, the society that told me my job as a woman was to smile and be nice to a man who gave me the creeps until it went on so long it turned into this." (60).
I love that this book had a happy ending, but I was not particularly satisfied at how Jimenez ended the stalker element of the plot! It seemed unlikely and far-fetched but also how did that solve the issue long term?
Stars: 3.5
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