Hi everyone. I'm Rincey and this is Rincey Reads.
Today I'm going to be doing a book
review on Before the Fall by Noah Hawley.
This is a mystery book, kind of. It's
categorized as a thriller/suspense novel,
and it kind of is. There is a mystery element 
to it but that's not really what it's about.
So the story starts off with these 
11 people who are on a private jet
flying from Martha's Vineyard to Manhattan. 
So they take off from Martha's
vineyard and within 15 minutes or so the
plane nose dives into the ocean.
Everyone dies except for two people on
the plane: this man named Scott who is this
poor painter who just happened to be on
the plane sort of an accident, and a
four-year-old boy who's Scott saves.
So the main questions that this book seems
to be asking are who are all these people?,
Why were they all on this plane? And did
any of them have anything to do with the
plane crash? So the way this book is
marketed they make it seem like it's
this big thriller trying to figure out
who crashed the plane. But it's really a
character-driven story. Don't expect this
to be fast moving because it's not. It's very
slow moving, but I found it to be
completely compelling. The characters
that are written about in here are all
super interesting. They all come from
different backgrounds, they all have
different motivations, they all have
different voices, they all have different
reasons for being in Martha's Vineyard
and for being on that plane.
It even talks about like the pilots and
the crew members who were on the plane
as well. So you get to see a little bit
of everyone. You are following the one
main storyline that's sort of just going
forward in time from the point of the
plane crash to sort of when everything
gets resolved, to a certain extent. And then
there are also chapters in here that are
focused on specific characters. So it'll
say the character's name at the
beginning and you get to see their
backgrounds, see who they are,
find out their own motivations. And then
you get to see sort of key moments in
their life that sort of explain who they
are as a character. And then you see
like how they ended up on the plane or
why they ended up on the plane.
I really enjoyed this book.
I gave it a 4 out of 5 stars. And if
you're someone who likes really
character-driven stories, I think you're
going to like this as well. There are a
couple of situations and here or a
couple of scenes in here that made some
of these characters seem like
caricatures. One of the main characters
in this story is this head executive in
charge of a major news station that's
almost like Fox News-ish. And then one of
the other main characters in here is
sort of like the main anchor at this
news organization. There are certain
points in the story where he just was so
over-the-top. Like I recognize that people
are over-the-top sometimes and people
make like poor life choices but it
seemed like this person was making poor
life choices thinking he was beyond those
choices. I mean, I guess it's totally
possible that there are people out there
like that because you see them all the
time making poor life choices in the public eye.
So yeah sometimes I would like read
scenes like that and I would feel a
little bit incredulous about what was
occurring. But I guess at the same time I
sort of can't feel super incredulous
because the time that we're living in.
You just sort of look around at the news
media and what's happening in the public
sphere and there are just really
ridiculous insane people like that.
But honestly overall I think that Noah
Hawley does a really fantastic job of
fleshing out these characters. I think he
does some really interesting things in
sort of comparing and contrasting how
different characters view the same scene.
There are a lot of times where you see
sort of like the same scene reflected in
different characters eyes. A lot of it is
like seeing how different people reacted
to different things on the plane or
even just like getting on the plane, the
way that they interacted with different
crew members, how the crew member looked at
it and how like the person looked at it,
and all these different things. And you
are sort of like putting pieces of a
puzzle together because you don't know
the full picture of what happens on this
plane until basically the entire story
goes down. So it is kind of nice to see
everything from different characters
points of view and seeing little pieces
being put together here and there.
And seeing how things that were talked
about towards the beginning of the book
do have an influence and come into play
later on in the story and things like that.
It's really fantastic. The main character
that you're following in this story
seems to be the painter, Scott, and I
think that Noah Hawley does really
interesting things through his point of
view, talking about the ideas of fame and
media and public attention and the way
the news cycle works and the way that we
build people up and then immediately
tear them down. And there's just a lot of
really great ideas that are discussed in
here. And it's hard to just like talk
about them without going into like
spoiler territory or without talking
about specific plot points, which is why
I feel like if you're someone who likes
really interesting characters you
definitely should pick up this book.
If you're someone who's interested in media at all
I feel like you should definitely pick
up this book because of everything that
it says about the 24-hour news cycle and
modern news and the way that they cover
major events, especially major tragedies.
All of that is just like super
interesting stuff, really great point of
view in my opinion.
Noah Hawley also has a bunch of credits in
writing for television and movies and
you can definitely tell that in this story.
There is a very cinematic feeling
to it. I feel like you could very much
picture everything that's happening in
the story which is something that I
really liked as well. I knew Noah Hawley best
for show running and writing for the TV
show Fargo on FX and I really enjoyed
that show for a lot of the same reasons
that I really enjoyed this book. So if
you're someone who watches Fargo at all
and you really enjoy that TV show, then
you should definitely pick up this book
because I feel like in both the show and
the book, they both explore these really
interesting characters and you sort of
get pieces of information about this
single event through different
characters' points of view. And you get to
see how different characters have an
influence on a thing that you might
not have realized until you see it from
another character's point of view. And
it's sort of like this fun almost puzzle,
almost mystery that you're putting
together. But in the end it's not really
about the puzzle or the mystery, it's just
about seeing who these characters are
and the choices that they're making or not making.
So yeah again i really enjoyed
this story. I would, again, highly
recommend it if you like character-driven
stories. If you go into this expecting
like a really great mystery, don't.
Because it's not a really great mystery.
Like I said in my September wrap up,
I kind of guessed what the ending was
and I was kind of disappointed by the
whole mystery aspect, like what caused
the plane to go down. But honestly I loved
everything else about the story so much
that I completely was just like, that's
fine with me. I don't really care if it was a dumb
ending, these were great
characters and I really enjoyed the
experience of reading this book. So yeah
those are my really quick thoughts on
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. If you've read
this book, feel free to leave a comment
down below letting me know what you guys thought of it.
I know this one is kind of divisive,
again, because the ending is not really
super great and also it's really slow
moving and I don't think people are
expecting that going into it. I was
warned ahead of time that this was a
slower-moving novel so I knew going into
it not to expect like a super
fast-paced thriller plot. Or if you have
any questions about this book or if
you've read any of Noah Hawley's other
books, I'd love to hear about that as
well. I know he's written a couple of
others, but I don't think I've like read
anything about them or heard much about
them. So if you've read them and liked
them definitely let me know down below.
Or if you didn't like them, you can let
me know that as well. So yeah that's all I have for now and thanks for watching.
