Reviews for Fall Asleep Forgetting

The average rating for Fall Asleep Forgetting based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-05-08 00:00:00 Jorma Lehtonen Received this in a First Reads giveaway. It's not my normal genre, but I'm trying different things, and based on the description of the book, I was thinking it might be one of those quiet books that sneaks up on you. It was a quiet book, but more in the sense that I didn't feel any attachment to the characters. I found it difficult to get into, as the shorter chapter writing style made it difficult for me to find a "flow" to the narrative. In the first half of the book, I felt like we were skimming over the characters and back story. In the second half, Paul and Claude had more of a presence and the other characters just floated around the periphery. The extended descriptions of Claude's photography made me think that I was reading a description of the author (based on her bookflap bio as a photographer). And then the photography just suddenly disappeared!The photographs themselves did appear in the latter half, but the process of taking the photos was gone. If someone is relying on a behavior (in this case, taking photographs) as a coping mechanism as it seemed Claude was doing, it wouldn't suddenly go away as things get more confusing. This made me start to wonder what else might change suddenly. It's hard not to be distracted from the story when other thoughts creep in like that. I wanted to like the book more because Paul's story interested me, but the pacing and character development really detracted from my appreciation of the story.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-01-09 00:00:00 John Johnson Although occasionally clumsy and overwrought (especially when we're given sneak peeks at Paul's poetry or Claude's diary entries), the language used by Packard is for the most part rich and evocative, especially in the descriptions of the surrounding landscape, the food consumed, and the unvoiced tensions between her characters. It's the structure, pacing and two-dimensional characters which weaken Fall Asleep Forgetting.At times, it feels as though some characters have been introduced only to increase difference, conflict and drama. But since any close-knit community has tensions, these characters' larger-than-life attributes come across as clichéd and unnecessary. Overall, an uncomfortable read and one which for me fell flat. (Excerpt from full review of Fall Asleep Forgetting at For Books' Sake)