A stimulating if baggy story of friendship, de los Santos's latest (after Belong to Me) tracks what happens to a trio of former friends brought together under unusual circumstances at their college reunion. Cat Ocampo's decision to marry Jason, her longtime boyfriend that her friends Will and Pen can't stand, drives a wedge into the friendship, and soon, with Cat out of the picture, Will and Pen drift apart. Six years later, Pen is a single mom and smarting from the loss of her father when, as the college reunion approaches, Cat e-mails her and Will, telling them she needs to see them at the reunion, but when Will and Pen show up, there's a big, unwelcome surprise waiting for them. De los Santos's fluid prose powers what turns into a nifty mystery, and though the plot flags later on, as if being drawn out for the sake of being drawn out, the mix of perfectly realized personalities and genuine emotion make this a winner. (Oct.)
The mix of perfectly realized personalities and genuine emotion make this a winner.” — Publishers Weekly on FALLING TOGETHER
“Readers who enjoy the connection forged through the ties of family and friendships should find much to savor in de los Santos’s comforting, leisurely paced novel.” — Library Journal on FALLING TOGETHER
“A satisfying novel about friends rediscovering one another—and confronting unwelcome truths—at their college reunion.” — People on FALLING TOGETHER
“[FALLING TOGETHER] is a good, solid read that succeeds in being both funny and heartbreaking. De los Santos has a knack for best-friend banter and stays true to the emotions involved in letting go of treasured relationships.” — Booklist on FALLING TOGETHER
“Falling Together explores the ways our familial relationships and friendships affect who we are and who we’re becoming…the appeal of de los Santos’ books remains the intimacy with which the reader gets to know each character.” — BookPage on FALLING TOGETHER
“Brimming with the author’s trademark wit, vivid prose and captivating characterizations, FALLING TOGETHER brilliantly explores our deepest human connections and confirms Marisa de los Santos as one of America’s most exciting contemporary novelists.” — Bookreporter.com
“Prose that shines in moments of tenderness.” — People on BELONG TO ME
“By the book’s end, humanity is discovered in the unlikeliest places, and Cornelia learns that tempting as it is, you can’t always judge a woman by her hairstyle.” — New York Times on BELONG TO ME
“De los Santos keeps us totally engaged with these fragile creatures, who get under our skin and, ultimately, into our hearts. Highly recommended.” — Library Journal (starred review) on BELONG TO ME
“Witty and intelligent.” — Kirkus Reviews on BELONG TO ME
“Fans of de los Santos’s previous heartfelt novels will rejoice to learn of her new one, and those readers just discovering her with Falling Together will be thrilled to hear that she has a backlist they can devour.” — SheKnows.com on FALLING TOGETHER
Prose that shines in moments of tenderness.
A satisfying novel about friends rediscovering one another—and confronting unwelcome truths—at their college reunion.
People on FALLING TOGETHER
By the book’s end, humanity is discovered in the unlikeliest places, and Cornelia learns that tempting as it is, you can’t always judge a woman by her hairstyle.
New York Times on BELONG TO ME
Brimming with the author’s trademark wit, vivid prose and captivating characterizations, FALLING TOGETHER brilliantly explores our deepest human connections and confirms Marisa de los Santos as one of America’s most exciting contemporary novelists.
Falling Together explores the ways our familial relationships and friendships affect who we are and who we’re becoming…the appeal of de los Santos’ books remains the intimacy with which the reader gets to know each character.
BookPage on FALLING TOGETHER
[FALLING TOGETHER] is a good, solid read that succeeds in being both funny and heartbreaking. De los Santos has a knack for best-friend banter and stays true to the emotions involved in letting go of treasured relationships.
Booklist on FALLING TOGETHER
Fans of de los Santos’s previous heartfelt novels will rejoice to learn of her new one, and those readers just discovering her with Falling Together will be thrilled to hear that she has a backlist they can devour.
SheKnows.com on FALLING TOGETHER
By the book’s end, humanity is discovered in the unlikeliest places, and Cornelia learns that tempting as it is, you can’t always judge a woman by her hairstyle.
Prose that shines in moments of tenderness.
Following Love Walked In and Belong to Me, de los Santos's third novel embraces the draw of college friendships. Catalina, Will, and Pen (short for Penelope) meet on a drama-filled night their freshman year and from that moment are completely inseparable, a solid trio whose bonds seem unbreakable. But something serious does come between them, and after college the friends stop speaking to one another. Yet each one feels the others' absence deeply. Until one day when Pen and Will receive a curt email from Cat: "Please come to the ten-year reunion, I need you." It's a mystery that neither Pen nor Will can ignore. What they find at the reunion is unexpected. This novel is partly a deep look into a friendship and what strengthened it as well as what ruined it, and partly a mystery that sends Pen and Will halfway around the world to the Philippines. The story unfolds in pieces—why the friendships fell apart and what reunites the friends in ways they would not have thought possible are slowly unveiled. While the characters are lovely and the writing is heartfelt, the pacing can be slow. VERDICT The author's fans will enjoy this nostalgic mystery with romantic elements. [See Prepub Alert, 4/18/11.]—Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC
In the latest from de los Santos (Belong to Me , 2008, etc.), a single mother's effort to reunite with her two best friends from college after a six-year silence doesn't pan out exactly as she expected.
After Pen met Cat (their cute, sexually ambiguous names a telling coincidence) and Will at the start of their freshman year at an unnamed Southern college, the three quickly recognized they were soul mates and became inseparable. Other friends and even lovers had to play second fiddle to their platonic threesome. After college, the three lived together until petite, half-Filipino Cat, who suffered from occasional epileptic seizures and was the most vivacious and quirky member of the group, decided she wanted to get married and moved out. The friendship was so intense that it could not survive alteration, and soon Will moved out too. In the ensuing six years, Pen has heard nothing from her friends. She is living with her brother while raising her 5-year-old daughter Augusta, the result of an affair with a likable jerk who has returned to his former wife, when she receives an e-mail from Cat begging her to meet at their college reunion. Will, now an author of children's books, receives the same e-mail and shows up too. But instead of Cat, Cat's husband Jason appears. He sent the e-mails and now begs them to help him find Cat, who disappeared shortly after her father's death (Pen is still mourning the death of her own father two years earlier while Will's father is alive but out of his life). Soon the three, plus Augusta, head to the Philippines. Pen and Will grapple with their confused, perhaps not so platonic feelings for each other as well as their ambivalence toward crude but oddly sympathetic Jason, a dead ringer for the actor Jason Segel.
Adept at creating romantic fiction for women who want to think they are above romantic fiction, de los Santos offers ever-so-sensitive protagonists who are surprisingly dense about their actual feelings.
