Heaven Should Fall
Heaven Should Fall by Rebecca Coleman takes us into one very broken family and shows us just how quickly lives can spiral out of control when tragedy strikes them. It takes us into the very hearts and minds of the characters in such vivid detail that you can’t help but feel you are experiencing it all with them.
Jill and Cade are in college and in love. The only problem that Jill sees is that Cade doesn’t want to introduce her to his family. He keeps telling her that they are all more trouble than they’re worth and that if she meets them she’ll run hiding from him. However when she becomes pregnant and Cade doesn’t get the job he had wanted he decides to take her back to his hometown to work and earn some money there before heading back to college.
At the same time Cade’s brother Elias had come home from Afghanistan recently. Jill and Cade had met him at the airport when he came home and he looked great but when they get to Cade’s hometown and see him again they are amazed at the difference in him in such a short time. He has gained quite a lot of weight and his muscle has gone to flab. It seems his only goal is to spend time in his chair looking outside.
Jill notices right away that things aren’t right with Elias and she wants to try and help him. The biggest problem is that nobody thinks Elias is doing as bad as she does. However as more time passes and after a few alarming instances of Elias’s behavior even Cade sees that maybe Elias isn’t as stable as he thought he was. Later when the family is blindsided by tragedy it is too late to turn back the time and wish they had done things differently. More importantly is the reaction of family members to the tragedy and the lengths they will go to in order to get the justice they feel they deserve.
Heaven Should Fall is the type of novel that really pulls you in and also delivers an important message. So many of our troops come back from Afghanistan and seem to be doing well and yet inside they are completely broken. Those of us at home who they are fighting to protect have no idea the horrors they go through and it comes as no surprise that they have these issues when they come home. What the book really highlights is the problems they have with getting the proper treatment to help them deal with these issues and I commend the author for tackling that aspect.
I enjoyed Heaven Should Fall. It is what I would consider a heavier read because of the subject matter. I thought the characters were well fleshed out as was the story. I’ve barely covered the depth of this book in this review as with any dysfunctional families there is always more than one person with serious issues. As well I think this book would make a good book club choice just for the shear multitude of issues that can be discussed and debated. Well done novel and well worth reading!