Freefall by Mindi Scott

Freefall by Mindi Scott

Synopsis:
How do you come back from the point of no return? Seth McCoy was the last person to see his best friend Isaac alive, and the first to find him dead. It was just another night, just another party, just another time where Isaac drank too much and passed out on the lawn. Only this time, Isaac didn’t wake up. Convinced that his own actions led to his friend’s death, Seth is torn between turning his life around . . . or losing himself completely. Then he meets Rosetta: so beautiful and so different from everything and everyone he’s ever known. But Rosetta has secrets of her own, and Seth will soon realize he isn’t the only one who needs saving . . .

Review:
And so continues my love affair with debut authors. Mindi Scott strikes gold with her first novel, a beautiful contemporary book with a fantastic male protagonist. I decided to read the book after taking part in a chat with Mindi and genuinely being smitten with her and I was equally smitten with Freefall.

While Mindi oozes sweetness in her vlogs and tweets, her writing is full of angst and guilt and pain in the best possible way. Seth is broken, he found his best friend dead, he is drinking and doing drugs, about to fail out of school and has very little regard for life but he is able to turn it all around and going on the journey with him is very enjoyable.

Scott never hides from any of the painful emotions, drinking or drug use. Instead, she describes all of Seth’s vices with a beauty that allows the reader to feel empathy for him. When Seth meets Rosetta he begins to turn his life around but what I loved is that Scott doesn’t write a typical “good girl swoops in and rescues bad boy” book. Instead, she gives Seth other motivations to improve his life, including a great class and teacher, good friends and a supportive, although unorthodox, mother. Seth’s life improvements really come from within and it is because he is already putting in the work that his relationship with Rosetta is enjoyable to read about.
Rosetta has her own issues to deal with but I liked that they didn’t take the focus from the main character, but complimented him perfectly and when all was said and done her issues really weren’t resolved, although it was easy to sense she would get there…someday.

I also think Scott wrote amazingly complex supporting characters, particularly Kendall who is layered, complicated and lovable enough for her own book (hint, hint Mindi! I want a spinoff with Kendall).

Be sure to come back on October 1 when Mindi will stop by for a guest post as part of the Teen Book Scene blog tour! Mindi is also part of the wonderful new group, The Contemps, which I blogged about the other day.

I reviewed this book as part of 1 ARC Tours.

This book goes toward my Summer Break Reading Challenge and 2010 Debut Authors Challenge