Customer Reviews

Feels Like Falling (Urban Soul) (Urban Soul Presents)

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This book holds your interest from the beginning to the end. It is terrific. The characters and their emotions flow from the book. This book truly goes in depth without being depressing and still entertaining about the emotions of a serious disease and its impact on a family. This was my first time reading Michelle McGriff and I am now a fan.

Michelle McGriff is one of my favorite authors so picking one of her 25 books to write about is difficult for me. But, if I were to say which book has had its most powerful impact for me, it would be Feels Like Falling. I've thought about this book often since I've read it a few times. It so speaks to the human condition and that final corner we all face--death.

What happens if you're a physician, who's at the top of his game, and his whole world falls apart through terminal cancer?

This is what happened with Sebastian York, who was married to equally successful doctor, TaRae York.

McGriff uses the 5 stages of grief as a literary device in this Feels Like Falling. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and then, finally, Acceptance each act as a structural guide through the story.

Although different family secrets and lies come out as Sebastian navigates the final stages of his life, in the end there is renewal. This is an uplifting story in spite of its serious subject matter.

I recommend this story to anyone who likes a good read or who has gone through loss.

Sebastian and Ta'Rae York, both very successful doctors, are living out their dream. They have a perfect marriage, careers, and the prefect 16 year-old daughter. Sabastian finaly faces his fears by seeing his family pysician - he has cancer and it is spreading quickly. The York family now begins to unravel. Realizing that he only as a short time to live, Sebastian begins to search for answers to questions that he chose to ignore and to also find closure with a woman that he had an affair with while Ta'Rae was pregnant years earlier. Ta'Rae blamed Sebastiand for destroying their perfect lives and realizes that she has to seek help from her ever so noisey sisters.

This was the first book I've read from Ms. McGriff and I enjoyed it very much. Their struggles were real and their questions were real. The book is broken up into sections - denial, anger, acceptance, (I may have them wrong, but this is somewhat the order) I particularly enjoyed the conversations between Ta'Rae and her sisters. There was however one story line that was left open (I assumed to leave room for another story). I look forward to reading more of Ms. McGriff in the future.

Peace and Blessings!!

Michelle McGriff weaves another tale featuring one of the Ams sisters in Feels Like Falling. Sebastian and Ta'rae York live the good life in Sausalito, California as wealthy physicians with their sixteen year-old daughter in affluent Marin County, outside of San Francisco. Then Sebastian gets the news that he has cancer and it is spreading. At the most he has two years to live. Sebastian is in search of making sense of his life and for some reason he seeks out a woman he had a brief affair with when Ta'rae was pregnant with their daughter, Precious.

Ta'rae feels as if Sebastian has upset their perfect life by becoming ill and while she is a physician herself and knows the perilous ordeals of life and death, she responds in her usual selfish, shallow way. Her sisters, a close-knit bunch headed by the oldest, Rita, view Ta'rae's attitude as typical. Ta'rae has been distancing herself away from them for awhile, encased in a private world she had made for herself, Sebastian and Precious. Her sisters, though they have achieved their own successes are down-to-earth Sistahs who feel it is time for Ta'rae to come off of her high horse and help her man get through this rough period

Meanwhile, Precious has her teenage angst going on, a younger doctor Ta'rae works with, sees his chance to move in and Sebastian discovers his early indiscretion is staring him in the face. The sisters are calling meetings and Sebastian takes off on a journey of discovery and in search of peace that takes him from Northern California to the Central Valley to Mexico.

At times this story was disjointed and jumped into scenes unforeseeable. The premise of one confronting his mortality and seeking to find closure and peace is a good one; however the characters' actions were unpredictable and impulsive at times. The dialogue between the sisters was priceless and realistic; makes one think of when they get together with their siblings. Fans of McGriff will be pleased at yet another novel with an Ams woman at the center of a drama-filled plot.

Dera Williams

APOOO BookClub

Feels Like Falling shows the depth of Michelle McGriff's writing. She takes the reader on a journey that taps in to various emotions. Readers won't be disappointed.