Customer Reviews

As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

PART ONE:

Ry only intended to be off the train for a moment. He had a quick phone call to make to his grandfather, and then it was back on the train. The call went to the answering machine and the train took off --- without Ry. Now, lost somewhere in Montana, Ry is in trouble. His parents are off on a Caribbean sailing adventure, his grandfather has fallen in a hole and suffered a concussion, and Ry has no place to turn except an old driveway he happens upon. In that driveway is someone who turns out to be his salvation --- Del.

PART TWO:

Del is a jack-of-all-trades who agrees to help Ry get back to his home in Wisconsin. Ry and Del pile into his old Jeep station wagon, and it's an instant road trip. Ry has no idea what has happened to his grandfather --- and neither does his grandfather, who has suffered amnesia --- and can only imagine what is happening with his parents. Del and Ry suffer minor setbacks on their road trip, namely hitchhiking with a lunatic, but eventually make it to Wisconsin and stumble upon Ry's worst nightmare. The answering machine reveals that Ry's parents are stuck in St. Jude as they await replacement passports, and his grandfather has no idea where he is and may be potentially hurt. Del declares that he and Ry will head to the Caribbean to find his parents, and that's that.

PART THREE:

If you've ever been on a long road trip, you know that you eventually end up learning a lot about the people you travel with. Ry learns that Del has a soft spot for a mysterious Yulia, who happens to be on the way, and he has friends in all places. Friends with airplanes that can cross a small part of the ocean and land on some islands off the Florida coast. After a harrowing plane ride, Del and Ry eventually hook up with Yulia, who offers them refuge and a boat. Without ever really second-guessing himself, Ry agrees to travel with Del to find his parents on St. Jude Island.

PART FOUR:

After traveling on a train, car, plane and boat, Ry is finally ready to find his parents and rejoin civilization. It's never that easy, though. Ry mistakenly steers the boat off course, and Del gets seriously injured in a windmill mishap. He is once again all alone, his parents are oblivious to what is happening, and his grandfather still can't remember anything. Who knew it was this easy to fall off the face of the earth?

In a technological age where more people are connected than ever before, you might find it impossible for Ry's scenario to actually happen. Lynne Rae Perkins, though, makes every situation seem real. People forget cell phones all the time, Facebook is a way to maintain relationships without talking, and many of us don't take the time to have real communication with others. AS EASY AS FALLING OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH is a fun read, but it also could be looked at as a cautionary tale. Perkins reminds us to find that common bond with one another, and then it won't seem as though we are all alone.

Since it is a road trip book about a teenage boy I was thinking it would have some Kerouac inspiration/feel to it. To the author's credit, she does know how to create characters that are warm, interesting, and provide depth to make them seem realistic. I wish the same could be said of her plot.
The story as one reviewer described it seems like a Rube Goldberg machine and unfortunately it is just as unbelievable and odd as one of those machines. The chain of events one after another seem so unrealistic I never could get to the point of suspending disbelief.
In brief without spoiling the plot, the main character, Ry, is taking a train to summer camp when the train stops in the middle of nowhere because of a malfunction. He steps off the train and then further away, in order to get better cell phone reception. Then the train leaves without him. His parents are taking a second honeymoon after a stressful move leaving the grandfather at the new house to take care of the dogs (the dogs are important believe it or not). Each character experiences unlikely mishaps that somehow make it impossible for the main character to let his family know he is lost. (Yes Ry has a cell phone for which he can't seem to find a charger, but even with low battery and the text feature enabled he can't seem to contact the friends who text him and get them to help him.) Other people really found this book charming and wonderful. I just couldn't get there.

Wow, talk about an adventure---just about everything that can possibly go wrong, does, in this rather unlikely story---with extremely amusing results. But you'll find yourself rooting for the main characters, especially Ry, who reacts to every trouble with outward calm, even if he's panicking inside.

The story is enlivened by the occasional illustration in comic book style. There is one tiny sub-plot, seen from the point of view of a pair of dogs, that is told only through drawings, and it's pretty funny.

I won't over-analyse the story here; other Amazon reviewers have talked about the novel with greater skill than I possess. I'll just say I LOVED THIS BOOK; recommended.

The dust jacket illustration is fantastic; appealing and dynamic and the little drawn-in plane and boat made me smile. Best cover design I've seen for ages.

"Wait a minute. Was the - had the train just moved?"

It seemed like a good idea, getting off the train. The conductor said they would be stopped there for forty minutes. It wasn't going to take that long. He was being cautious, reasonable even. He had a plan. Fifteen-year-old Ry was well on his way to The Summer ArchaeoTrails program when he finally opened the last letter from the camp director and found out that camp had be cancelled. He decided to call his grandfather, who's house and dog sitting while Ry's parents are on a sailing vacation in the Caribbean. He figured his grandfather would know what he should do. Only Ry can't get any cell reception on the train out here in the middle of nowhere, Montana. So when a minor mechanical glitch forced an unscheduled stop, and Ry saw a hill where reception might be possible - well, like I said, it seemed like a good idea. And yet, here he is, alone, no backpack (it's still on the train), no one answering the phone back home and his cell battery slowly dying.

This inauspicious start launches the most improbable, fantastical summer of Ry's life. Stranded and alone, with no way to reach his parents or his grandfather (who, as it turns out, are all having troubles of their own), Ry begins an epic adventure ruled by the inevitable Murphy's Law. Ry is lucky enough to pick up an ally and traveling companion, Del, -a "ninja, cowboy fix-it-man" who believes nothing is impossible. Together, Ry and Del will face a host of obstacles as they answer the question, 'What lengths would you go to in order to get back to the people you love?'

When Lynne Rae Perkins won the Newbery Medal for Criss Cross, the critics (there are always critics) complained that the novel had no real plot (which just means they totally missed the point, in my opinion). This book has a plot and a quest, but it isn't necessarily plot-driven. It really doesn't need to be. The brilliance here is in the writing - the exquisite prose, the wry humor, the back stories gradually revealed. Ry's story is one of resiliency and of self confidence. It's about not giving up and about learning to trust others while standing on your own two feet. Most of all, this novel is a wonderful, engaging, surprising adventure.

Ry is going to a camp for the summer. He's set to leave on a train, bound for the ArcheoTrails program. Until he's not. Ry got off the train to make a call to his grandfather, who is home babysitting the family pets, and the train began to move. Without him. Trying and failing to catch up to the train, Ry's journey began. To somehow get home to his grandfather, who isn't picking up the phone, or to contact his parents, who are sailing around the islands somewhere. Along the way, he meets Del, a kind man who has his own reasons for taking a detour around the country, and who quickly builds a bond of friendship with young Ry.

AS EASY AS FALLING OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH is Lynne Ray Perkins' second novel for teens, and portrays the same breezy, poetic style that CRISS CROSS used to win the hearts of readers everywhere. Alternating chapters between the story of Ry, his forgetful grandfather, his direction-challenged parents, and comics detailing the lives of the two family dogs, Perkins crafts a fun little story that will appeal to middle grade readers.

The characters of this novel are what make it shine. Ry is a great male protagonist who has quiet yet focused goals, but is still an adolescent and unsure of the decisions that he should make. The trip changes him in many ways that readers will come to appreciate, and was my favorite part of the novel. Ry's grandfather is a little more eccentric, and isn't in the picture much. Readers will be concerned for his character, but will not connect with him on the same level as Ry. The same is very true for Ry's parents, as well. Del, another one of the many adult characters populating Perkins' novel, is a step up from Ry's relatives and is enjoyable and very three-dimensional with the romantic past he slowly reveals to Ry throughout the course of the book. However, readers of all kinds will probably enjoy the comics featuring the family dogs the most. They were particularly funny and well-written animals.

Ms. Perkins first captured me with her writing in CRISS CROSS, which was one of my favorite middle grade love story books a few years back, and it was just as strong in her sophomore novel. However, readers will find her unfocused plot a lot less appealing this time around. Ry's quest is interesting, but not very meaningful until the end, and many parts lag because of this. Nonetheless, it makes for a great book, especially for younger readers, and they will be enraptured by the delightfully elegant prose of Lynne Rae Perkins.

Reviewed by: John Jacobson, aka "R.J. Jacobs"

My 10-year old son is a voracious reader. It is a challenge to find books that are challenging and interesting enough to really engage him, without covering topics that are more "mature" than I'd like him to read. Despite his hesitancy, because the cover and title didn't telegraph the content of the book (10-year olds are like the rest of us, they do try and judge a book by its cover!), and he tends more towards sports books, he quickly became completely engrossed in the book. The good news it is long enough and challenging enough to read that it lasted him a full week, during which he kept sneaking away to read it some more (good summer fun!).

I loved this book. First of all, I adore an interesting, new premise -- and this book has that, with its protagonist being sent off to camp by his parents and ending up completely stranded in the middle of nowhere. I found all of the characters engaging.

And the coolest thing of all was how the author dealt with some of the deep issues of life (in
potentially life-threatening situations at times!)in such a light-hearted, flowing way that nonetheless gave full respect to the ways that life is, and how people relate to that.

"Dear Roy,Do not come to camp. There is no camp. Camp is a concept that no longer exists in a real place or time.We are so sorry. The Summer ArchaeoTrails Program will not take place. A statistically improbable number of things have gone wrong and the camel's back is broken. Your money will be fully refunded as soon as I sell my car and remortgage my house..."

By time the story begins and Ry is once again reading the letter, a statistically improbable number of things have already begun to go wrong for him, too. The train transporting him from the Midwest to the now-nonexistent summer camp in Montana had been delayed in the middle of nowhere. When he accidentally found this last letter stuffed in his backpack, read it, and tried to immediately call his grandfather from the train, there were no bars of reception on his cell phone. Hearing that the train delay was going to be at least forty minutes, he'd stepped off the train and climbed a nearby hill to try and get some reception. Now, inexplicably, the train has suddenly departed -- with all his stuff -- before he can get back down the hill to it. His phone is already very low on power and even if the charger were not on the train, there is absolutely no sight of civilization -- other than silent train tracks -- from where he is sitting.

This would still not be that much of a problem (or a story) had his family not just moved to a new town where he knows nobody. This would still not be that much of a problem (or a story) had his grandfather -- who came to their new house to dog-sit and who is, just about at this moment, suffering a memory-scrambling concussion -- been available to answer the phone. This would still not be that much of a problem (or a story) had his parents -- who have headed down to the Caribbean to revitalize their marriage -- not had their cell phone stolen by a monkey.

Holy smokes! How many more things can go wrong from this point forward? Damned near 350 pages worth. But this is middle school literature -- as opposed to gritty YA -- so the only rotting corpses that result from the endlessly unfolding and jaw-dropping mountain of falls, crashes, explosions, missteps, crossed or broken wires and opportunities just-missed-by-a-hair, are those of mollusks and rodents.

"'Do they have an itinerary?' asked Arvin. 'Or are they just blowing in the wind, wherever love takes them, skipping over the ocean like a stone?'"'Arvin's kind of a mystic,' explained Beth."

AS EASY AS FALLING OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH by Newbery medalist Lynne Rae Perkins is a splashing, crashing, smashing ode to one young man's summer vacation gone terribly (and wonderfully) awry.

If you liked The Hunger Games for certain reasons (the deceptively spare writing and the bullet-train speed and suspense), you might be surprised to find that Perkins' Easy As Falling Off the Face of the Earth offers charms you will also appreciate, albeit without the future of civilization being at stake. Hunger Games is fresh-roasted venison to Easy's creme brulee, but they're both written with understated brilliance. Wildly different times/places have created wildly different teenagers intent on urgent missions. In Perkins' book--and the title is WAY too long to keep typing--15-year-old Ry must get himself reconnected to his parents on the other side of the world after being stranded in the middle of Montana with no backpack, shoes, or working cell phone. Not much has been demanded of him in his life so far, but a lot is about to be. I enjoyed the quirky, amusing and every so often brilliant observations the author makes about life, and Ry's teenaged-boy point of view rang true for this Clark Kentish, boy-of-few words main character. Occasionally the switch from Ry's voice to the author's jarred. It's deliberate, clearly, but gives the book a filter that kept me from engaging fully with any one character. Perkins relates a story infused with her own take on life, and at no point do you doubt Ry will emerge at the end to live happily ever after, wiser, with all his loved ones intact. His adventures are eyebrow-raising, not heart-stopping. Still, Easy as etc. makes a nice, occasional change of pace for adults or teens. I do wish Ry had had to shoot someone, even if he missed.

Of all the summer reading I did this summer, this book still stands out as one of my favorites. Just a fun overall adventure that keeps you engaged and wondering what's going to happen next:)