** spoiler alert ** This is the author, Frances O'Roark Dowell's first attempt at writing fantasy. After almost every chapter she interrupts the narrative to say things like, "You want me to tell you where Isabelle [the main character:] is don't you?" thus spoiling the desires of the reader to be taken off to another world, which is one of the key reasons fantasy fans love the genre! These interruptions do have a purpose, but it's only at the very end that the reader understands them, and it's a disappointment, rather than what I believe the author intends--that of an "ah-ha!" moment.

Despite this rather big flaw that the reader must somehow manage (I ended up skipping these parts altogether when they got too tiresome) the book is enjoyable and will have appeal to primarily lonely girls who don't believe they fit in at their schools (unfortunately, a big audience). This is exactly what Isabelle is at the beginning of Falling In, and Dowell does an excellent job of describing what it has been like for Isabelle, an oddball dreamer who excels at imagination, but bottoms out in social situations and homework efficiency. While waiting in the principal's office one afternoon, she strikes up a conversation with another girl who is waiting for the nurse. Isabelle looks for a bandaide to assist the other girl and opens a closet door to another world. In this alternate world she meets up with children on their way to a camp in the woods. Their parents have sent them there to get away from the witch who will eat them if given half a chance.