Book Review: Faller by Will McIntosh

Ok, I’ve been trying and trying… I usually love Will McIntosh – so much so that I saw his name and hit request before I even read the description. He’s inventive and clever and writes unusual stories that are engaging and innovative and quirky and all things I like. But for some reason, this one just cannot hold me…

Faller started great, as usual for him: an intriguing set of circumstances, a character you can’t help but pull for because he’s simultaneously Everyman and an utter original. The idea – that everyone wakes up one day with no idea who they are, where they are, where they came from, or what in the name of utter creation is going on –

was novel and weird and yet still somehow just maybe, possibly, believable enough to be uber-eerie. Then after a series of odd yet compelling chapters, that story ended. Temporarily. And a completely new story began. And that one is the one that just can’t hold me…

I’ve read other reviews. I know Will McIntosh’s other books. From the latter I assume things will come together in some way soon; from the former, I understand that assumption to be true. From the former I also understand that the connections will start to appear subtly, and then they will start to increase in both frequency and intensity, and that the story will make complete, magical, marvelous, brilliant sense then and be as great as a Will McIntosh book is supposed to be.

But despite those attestations from other readers, I can’t seem to make myself keep reading. I’m only 20% in, according to my kindle, and each page of the last 5% has been a slog, since I have found myself also losing interest in the set of circumstances the early-pages protagonist appears to have (literally) fallen into… I don’t know if it’s just that this isn’t the right book for me right now, or if it’s just not the right book for me – either way, I need to put it down. It shouldn’t be this much work to get into the story… I like the author – and premise – enough to give it another try, just not now.

My review copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley.