Title: Never Stop Falling
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary
Source: Author
She didn’t expect to fall for her best friend.He was always waiting to catch her.Corinne Bennett lives in the moment. Whether she’s skydiving out of an airplane, or setting off on the road to anywhere, she’s ready to dive into the next adventure. That is, if best friend and always-by-the-book Nicholas Kelley doesn’t put his foot down on her wild stunts first.When Corinne gives in to her growing feelings for Nicholas the summer before their freshman year of college, she takes the ultimate risk, making this one adventure he has longed to explore with her.But the moment they take that irrevocable leap, a shocking revelation blindsides Corinne, exposing her vulnerabilities, baring her fears, and shattering her beliefs about love. With their future—and more importantly, their friendship—now clouded in doubt, she must decide if love is really worth the risk.Because when it comes to love, you never stop falling.
The first time I checked Never Stop Falling, my initial impression was “Oh, I think I’ll be having some Christine Brae feels here.” I was also a little excited because Ashley Drew mentioned that just like Brae, she’s a Filipino author residing in US, and recently, I’ve been into discovering more novels from our very own Filipino authors, and if I’m not mistaken this is Ashley Drew’s debut novel.
The prologue. Holy hell! The prologue already has so much feeeeeels. And I knew from the moment I read the prologue, that I’ll be getting more feels on the next chapters.
Never Stop Falling revolves around childhood best friends, Corinne and Nicholas. Yes, you guess it right! Cori and Nick started falling for each other, but circumstances prevented them from confessing what they really feel. I was about 20% on my progress, when the emailing style of writing started. It was like the one in Love, Rosie, which got me pretty worried because (1) Love, Rosie has the email style of writing, (2) Alex and Rosie are best friends, just like Cori and Nick, (3) They got separated before they were able to confess their feelings for each other, so go figure.
As I made more progress on my reading, I was relieved to know that Never Stop Falling wasn’t exactly like Love, Rosie after all. Cori and Nick did get separated, but they were together on most of the story, and conflicts bloomed on those times they’re together. Unlike on Love, Rosie, where the conflicts were mostly because they’re separated.
The story and plot focused on many aspects of our lives all at once. It was a melodramatic novel which focused on family affairs, friendship and love. The conflicts were mainly on those matters I’ve mentioned. It worked quite well, especially on the friendship — it’s not just about Cori and Nick.
I was not a big fan of Cori. I liked her at first, but when I was at the middle of the story, I started to hate her. On the second part of the story, because of her circumstances, she became selfish and self-centered. It felt like she’s so mature and yet so childish at the same time. Perhaps I grew to hate her because I felt bad for Nick, but Cori has her reasons, of course. It was just unfortune because I became so much more attached to Nick that I can’t help but throw shade on Cori. lol.
Nick, on the other hand, was surely every woman’s dream. He was funny, and swoon-y, and his love for Cori was undying. Between Cori and Nick’s relationship, Nick was the underdog, and I kept feeling sorry for him. Every. Single. Time. I don’t know if it’s only me, but it feels heavy when the guy was always the one hurting and crying. I’m not being sexist. lol. It just feels that way to me. Maybe because, we don’t usually see men cry because of their strong facade? And when we see that facade crumble, we crumble with it. Yeah? lol. I don’t know.
What I loved the most in Never Stop Falling was the plot twist. I’ll be honest, I’m pretty dense sometimes, so I wasn’t sure if the plot twist here was obvious or it’s really surprising, because I was too surprised that I had to go back on the prologue to connect the dots properly. The plot twist was pretty cool.
However, as much as I loved the plot twist, one of the drawbacks I had for not rating this a perfect 5-star was the ending, (some were the dragging moments along the way.) Don’t get me wrong, the ending was a good ending, but it was not the best. I know that Drew was capable of producing a much greater ending, but it somehow felt like “Okay, I have to end this now, so be it” and bam, that’s it. I expected so much more with the ending, but nonetheless, it’s was still good.
Overall, Never Stop Falling was a pretty impressive New Adult debut novel from Ashley Drew. And I’ll make sure to tune on her future novels. You should too!
A San Francisco Bay Area native, Ashley Drew currently lives in Los Angeles. When she’s not going cross-eyed after writing for five hours straight, or burying her nose in a book, you’ll find her sprawled on her couch watching General Hospital, having alien conspiracy discussions with her husband over a bottle of bubbly, and dancing to Taylor Swift’s 1989 album with her daughter.Social Media Links:
Erika is a freelance content writer and illustrator from the Philippines. Aside from her love of arts and reading, she loves taking photos, coffee, cats, and fairies. She’s into fantasy, historical fiction, and contemporary, and anything young adult genres.