Review: The Splendor Falls

Product Details

• Pub. Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Random House Children’s Books
• Format: Hardcover , 528pp
• Sales Rank: 282,184
• Age Range: Young Adult

• ISBN-13: 9780385736909
• ISBN: 0385736908

Synopsis

Sylvie Davis is a ballerina who can’t dance, she lost everything important to her in one missed step.

Uprooting her from her Manhattan apartment, and shipping her to Alabama is her mother’s solution for Sylvie’s unhappiness. But life might not be any more simple down south.  As it turns out, her family has a lot more history than Sylvie ever knew. More unnerving, though, are the two guys that she can’t stop thinking about.

Then Sylvie starts seeing things. A girl down by the lake. A man peering into the window. And a graveyard with an oddly placed headstone. Sylvie’s lost nearly everything—is she starting to lose her mind as well?

My Thoughts

Very interesting book.  I love that there is a little of history and lore in this book. 

I had a hard time liking Sylvie in the beginning of this book.  She just seemed like a stuck up girl who while yes had a horrible accident was just rotten.  It did not take me long to see that she was just hiding her pain that that she really was likable.  I really like Rhys right from the beginning.  I love that he didn’t put with with Sylvie’s attitude.  There was always the air of mystery around him.  As for Chase and the other kids in the story, they were well defined and as you read the story you understand why they are the way there are.

The author did a wonderful job on keeping you in the dark on what was really going on for a very long time in this story.  At first, it was pretty slow read but then I got to a point where I just could not put the book down.  I wanted to know what was going on!  Great plot. 

For me the most enjoyable parts of this story has to do with the history of the area and Sylvie’s ancestors and the lore that goes along with the Standing Stones.  I am very interested in the standing stones and did not go into this story knowing that this was even a part of the story.  That made it even better for me. 

This book is definitely work checking out.  It makes you question the seemly “magic” things that happen in our lives.

My Rating

4 of 5 stars.  Mostly for the slow start.

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