I picked up  A Beginner’s Guide To Free Fall from Amazon’s First Reads, because, hey, free book! That’s kind of my overall feeling after reading it, though. Hey, it was free.

After a dramatic opening, in which our protag Davis loses his job and his wife in one afternoon, the book meanders though their family history and introduces secondary characters who are mostly a little too Quirky, in ways that felt forced. I bought Davis’ shy sister Molly (although I didn’t buy her weirdly passive relationships), so I kept reading.

Mostly, I didn’t feel like the novel had any stakes. I had no doubt that Molly’s articles and then podcast would be a success. I didn’t worry that her struggling newspaper would go under. I had no doubt that the high-school dropout would pass her exams and be fine. I didn’t wonder if Davis’ rollercoaster would work and if he’d get his career and his wife back. I don’t know why I didn’t feel any tension, but even in the pseudo-death scene, it felt like a fakeout, and I didn’t worry that anything bad might happen.

There were a couple other things that felt fake and annoying. Davis’ almost-stepmom is called Peti, and somehow this is still funny to him. She’s been with his dad since Davis was a child, and he’s still making Tom Petty jokes every single time she’s mentioned? His family members, far from being quirkily dysfunctional, are the most patient people on the planet. Also, I think it’s weird when characters call each other brother and sister, it always feels like poor plot exposition and not a nickname.

I don’t know why I keep saying fake about a novel, which is fiction by definition, but I just didn’t feel like these characters were struggling or growing. Anyway, free book.