Deeper We Fall by Chelsea M. Cameron
Series: Fall and Rise #1
Published by DRC Publishing on January 24th 2013
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 453
Format: ebook
Source: Bought
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Two years after her best friend was involved in a car accident that caused a traumatic brain injury, Lottie Anders is ready to start her freshman year of college. Ready to move on. Ready to start forgetting the night that ripped her life apart.

Her plans come to a screeching halt when not one, but both brothers responsible for the accident end up back in her life again.

Zack is cruel, selfish and constantly rubbing what happened to her friend in Lottie's face.

Zan is different. He listens to her awkward ramblings. He loves To Kill a Mockingbird as much as she does, and his dark eyes are irresistible. His words are few and far between, but when he does speak, she can't help but listen.

The trouble is, Zan was the driver in the accident, and now Lottie's discovered he lied to her about what happened that night. Now she must decide if trusting him again will lead to real forgiveness, or deeper heartache.

Let me just start off by saying that I’m extremely glad I got this book for free on Kindle and didn’t waste my money on it.  Deeper We Fall reminded me why I don’t read self-published books.  There were so many things I absolutely hated about Deeper We Fall.  I’m honestly amazed I even finished it and I’m kind of kicking myself for wasting so much time with it.

Pros:

• The only good thing this book had going for it was the beginning.  It started off strong, I’ll give it that.  I wanted to know more about what happened after the accident and the secrets surrounding the accident.  It was pretty easy to figure out what the secret about the accident was though so my curiosity didn’t last too long.

Cons:

• Characters: I didn’t like most of the main characters.  Will and Simon were probably the exceptions.  They were funny and I loved how they treated Charlotte.  Will was a great brother and Simon was basically brother number two.  They were adorable.  Charlotte, however, was whiny and annoying and extremely naive.  She blamed herself for the accident even though she wasn’t even in the car.  She did everything she could to stop her friend from getting in the car, short of dragging her away.  There was nothing she could have done and she constantly beat herself up about it.  Not just herself though.  She treated Zan and Zack Parker like crap for the accident.  Zack was totally to blame but Zan was pretty much an innocent bystander even though he was driving the car.  I could also understand her hostility toward Zack because he was a total douchebag.  Her attitude toward Zan was just mean though.  And for her to then start falling for him just made no sense.  Zan was annoying because he was so obsessed with Charlotte.  I didn’t find his behavior attractive.  In fact, it was a little stalkerish.  He claimed to be in love with her but he never even had a conversation with her before the accident.  That’s not love, that’s obsession.

• Romance: Okay let’s get into the romance a little more.  Zan and Charlotte obviously have something going on and it was the dumbest thing I have ever read.  First, Charlotte is a giant bitch to Zan.  She was never once nice to him and yet he loved her.  Or at least claimed he did.  Then when they do finally start something, he lets her call all the shots and she’s not willing to let anyone know about them.  And Zan is fine with that.  He doesn’t want to scare her off so he just lets her walk all over him.  I’m all for men and women being equal in relationships and that goes for this situation too.  Zan had no control over what they did or didn’t do.  I hated that.

• Story: The story dragged for so long.  There was so much unnecessary information.  Nothing even happened with Charlotte and Zan for more than half of the book.  I’m sorry, if there is supposed to be some big important romance in a book, it should happen before I get 70% of the way through the book.  Also, there was pretty much nothing else going on other than this romance that I was pretty sure was never going to happen. There were a few small side stories which I knew were going to be excuses to have more books with these characters but they were pretty much all tied up pretty quickly and didn’t hold my interest.  Everything about this book was predictable.

Overall, I’m just going to stop because if I don’t, I’ll rant for 5 more pages.  I don’t recommend reading this one but it’s free on Kindle if you do decide to pick it up for some reason.  It seems like other readers have really enjoyed it so maybe it’s just that this one was not for me.

Overall reaction:

What others are saying about Deeper We Fall:

• unConventional Book Views’ review: “Deeper We Fall is a heart-breaking contemporary story, filled with guilt, and a very tentative path towards love.”

• The Readdicts Book Blog’s review: “Fans of new adult should definitely give Chelsea M.Cameron a try.”

• Polished Page Turners’ review: “I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys New Adult, especially those that are heavy on the emotional and not on the sex.”