Five Ways to Fall - Review

Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths, # 4)

By: KA Tucker

Expected Publication: June 24th 2014 by Atria Books

256 pages

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

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Goodreads description--Purple-haired, sharp-tongued Reese MacKay knows all about making the wrong choice; she’s made plenty of them in her twenty-odd-years. So when her impulsive, short-lived marriage ends in heartbreak, she decides it’s time for a change. She moves to Miami with the intention of hitting reset on her irresponsible life, and she does quite well…aside from an epically humiliating one-night stand in Cancun with a hot blond bouncer named Ben. Thank God she can get on a plane and leave that mistake behind her.

Football scholarship and frat parties with hot chicks? Part of charmer Ben Morris’s plan. Blown knee that kills any hope of a professional football career? So not part of the plan. Luckily Ben has brains to go with his knockout looks and magnetism. After three long years of balancing law school with his job as a bouncer at Penny’s Palace, he’s ready to lead a more mature life—until his first day of work, when he finds himself in the office of that crazy, hot chick he met in Cancun. The one he hasn’t stopped thinking about.

If Ben truly were a smart guy, he’d stay clear of Reese. She’s the boss’s stepdaughter and it’s been made very clear that office romances are grounds for dismissal. Plus, rumor has it she’s trouble. The only problem is, he likes trouble, especially when it’s so good-looking…

Nash (which I haven't reviewed yet) was the perfect book for me to help with my reading slump a while back. But after I finished it…well…it was over. I needed something else along the same lines. I literally got approved for Five Ways to Fall the next day after finishing Nash, and Five Ways to Fall was the perfect book for me to follow up with. I have to say that when I read the description for Five Ways to Fall I wasn’t excited about reading about Reese’s recently dissolved marriage. Too many marriages end in divorce, it’s really sad. But KA Tucker did the same thing to me in One Tiny Lie. She took a topic that I don’t typically enjoy reading about and wrote it in such a way that I couldn’t complain. That’s what she does. I should have known better.

Reese is sassy. She’s snarky. She doesn’t play by the rules. She’s always marched to the beat of her own drummer. She has multiple piercings, tattoos. She rides motorcycles and has a knack for getting caught red-handed (for people who have read Five Ways to Fall--see what I did there?). She loves passionately and hates just as well. So it’s no surprise that she gets married quickly, loves him passionately, and is devastated when the marriage ends abruptly. It’s also no surprise that she’s bitter and wouldn’t mind to see her ex-husband suffer just a little of the same pain that he’s caused her. At the same time, she’s pretty much given up on the idea of men and dating.

Ben, we know really well from all of the previous books. He’s a player, and he’s never tried to hide it. He’s completely upfront with Reese about wanting a good time and a good time only. No strings. No commitments. No feelings. Reese has no issues with that because she wants the same thing. And they slowly become friends. Despite the tension and obvious attraction between them, any attempts at more than friend-zone appropriate behavior is essentially spoiled time and time again. I loved this. To be so open to a lack of commitment, Ben and Reese’s relationship built so slowly. The slow build up made their relationship all the more believable. I would never have bought their relationship--considering the backgrounds of both--if they had come on hot and heavy from the very beginning.

Both Reese and Ben have some major background baggage. Reese’s father dropped her off at a diner when she was little and her mother has tried to change her into what she wants her to be all the while bouncing from marriage to marriage trying to climb the social ladder. Ben’s father has been an alcoholic for a long time--cheating on Ben’s mother and neglecting his family. These two had a lot to overcome and it’s no wonder they both have commitment issues with these parents as their only examples of what committed and “healthy” marriages should look like. Five Ways to Fall was not what I was expecting it to be, but that’s completely a good thing. It was better and more than I was expecting. Despite KA Tucker’s three previous books as proof that she wouldn’t steer me wrong, I somehow doubted. I’m not a doubter anymore and I can’t wait to read more by her. Unfortunately, Five Ways to Fall is the last planned book in the Ten Tiny Breaths series. I seriously hate that because I want more KA Tucker, but also because with each book she’s introduced other characters that I would like to know more about. She could keep writing in this series for eternity and I would be happy.

Like Ten Tiny Breaths, Five Ways to Fall was one of the least graphic books I’ve read in the new adult genre. One Tiny Lie and Four Seconds to Lose I remember being a bit more graphic, but I was impressed with Ten Tiny Breaths and Five Ways to Fall. I have a lower graphic tolerance than some so this was a bonus for me.

My favorite quotes:

I’m going to puke. I’m going to puke doing a facedown starfish if I don’t get up right now.

Mr. Cuervo and I—and all his Mexican cousins—are no longer on speaking terms.

“All out of the kindness of your heart?”
“Definitely for an organ of mine,”…

“Have you always loved yourself this much?”
“I had an awkward year in ‘ninety-nine, but I got over it quick,”…

Five Ways to Fall gets 4 Stars from me. Have you read Five Ways to Fall? What did you think? Let me know!