EmberShane

*YA Gothic*

This YA novel is based off of the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe... which just happens to be one of my favorite (if not THE favorite) of Poe's works. However, you don't have to have read the short story in order to follow along. Actually, 97% of this story takes place prior to Poe's setting of the story and from a different perspective, so there's not really any overlap between the two tellings. The writing for this novel was amazing. Lyrical and haunting and gothic. There was never a moment where I was bored. The one thing I wasn't crazy about was the numerous, short chapters... 147 chapters in all, many of them only being a page or two. Also, in the first half of the book, the chapters are not in chronological order. When the book opens, you see Madeline as she is at the end of the book, and in the next chapter, she is years younger. I didn't mind this as writing technique in itself. The chapters are entitled as to how old Madeline is during that chapter, so the confusion is minimal as to which time period you are in. But because the chapters were so short, I felt like I was just settling in for the time change when the chapter would end and I'd be thrown forward in time again. All in all, The Fall is a beautifully written novel and I can't wait to read more by Griffin