This book is so dark... you'll wonder if you have what it takes to keep reading. Others have covered the story line; no need here. Sort of a "Drowning Ruth" kind of feeling to it, but even darker! Somehow, this author draws you in (about mid-way, really) and you have to keep going so you can understand the deep, dark secrets of this stricken family. Give it a shot.

I am an avid reader and read in a lot of different genres. This book, of all the books that I have read has touched my soul. I, like other reviewers, held the book for a long time when it was over. It was hard to leave the world that I was brought into by this book.

I read this book years ago and every time I go in the bookstore I go and touch the rind.

The story is epic and tragic. It demonstrates so well the way that tragedy in our childhood affects us our whole lives.

I highly recommend this book. Even though it is painful to read, it is a gift.

The world of this story is vivid, the characters are vulnerable and complex, and the writing is lyrical. I love the depth of each character's convictions and even though the story is tragic, if I could, I would live in the story with Frances forever.

MacDonald creates a gorgeous landscape--so wonderful that even with a few writing problems that would normally annoy me, I continued to read and enjoy and love everything on the page.

When I finished this book around midnight on a Friday night, I just sat and held it for awhile, sad it was over and needing to process the last bit I had read. Two days later, I went out and bought copies for my friends and started reading my own copy again. I missed those messed-up Pipers, and I missed the "Hurt So Good" feeling that came from this book.

Reading the story of the Piper family will cause you to experience
laughter, love, shock, and outrage. You will hurt and then heal, only to have your wounds torn open again. And yet, insanely enough, you will keep reading because you just can't help yourself.

MacDonald is an amazing storyteller. I still don't know how she managed to keep me reading page after page of her heartbreaking saga, but she did. There were times when I wondered why I was putting myself through it, times when I didn't think I could bear any more heartbreak or ugliness. At one point, after a series of events that seemed more than any family (or reader) could take, she almost lost me. I put it down, then found myself wondering about those people, and picked it up again. I had to know what happened. I stuck with it. I'm so glad I did.

In addition to her great storytelling, MacDonald's writing/word choice had its share of high points, too, Kathleen's singing debut being one of them. It was achingly beautiful. MacDonald keeps you reading when you think you can't, playing the reader like a conductor leads the orchestra, pushing, pulling, holding back, letting go. At the end of Maestro MacDonald's performance, you'll be drained. And in awe.

Haunting, dream-like, eerie beyond comfort, and everything I want in a novel. MacDonald's voice is so unique that I was left in complete awe from plot to characters to dialogue.
"Fall" is laced with delicious word groupings I had to highlight in my book so I could love them again and again. This book is about faith and family, darkened and honest after many years of sin and mental disturbance. The people in this book leap off the page and into your soul. One will fall in love with the characters and then loathe or mourn them at the finish. The Pipers haunted me, and indeed, it was difficult to find another book as beautifully done as this. This book will stay with the reader, whether or not they liked it. And it is a lucky reader who appeases the fermenting story by picking it back up, regardless. If you didn't like it the first time, at the end of the second, you will love it.