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    A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall
    A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall
    A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall
    Audiobook9 hours

    A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall

    Written by Andy Abramowitz

    Narrated by Andy Abramowitz

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    After their lives fly off the rails, getting back on track takes everything they have left.

    Davis Winger has it all. A respected engineer who designs roller coasters in theme parks across the country, he is deeply in love with his wife and has a beautiful young daughter and a happy home. Until an accident strikes on one of his rides. Nothing fatal—except to his career. And to his marriage, when a betrayal from his past inadvertently comes to light. In one cosmically bad day, Davis loses it all.

    His sister, Molly, is at a crossroads herself. She’s coasting through a dire relationship with an incompatible man-child. And she’s a journalist whose deeply personal columns about mothers and daughters are forcing her to confront the truth about her own mother, who abandoned Molly and Davis years ago and disappeared.

    For these two siblings, it’s just a matter of bracing themselves for one turbulent summer in this redemptive and painfully funny family drama about making the best of the sharp turns in life—those we choose to take and those beyond our control.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJan 1, 2020
    ISBN9781799749479
    A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall
    Author

    Andy Abramowitz

    Andy Abramowitz lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters. He is a lawyer with a past in music, but he has no musical legacy to correct. Thank You, Goodnight is his first novel.

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    Reviews for A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall

    4/5

    31 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Andy Abramowitz creates very good, original characters and writes great dialog for them. I've really enjoyed all his books.
    • 4/5
      Davis designs roller coasters, and life is good until his wife finds out about a one-night stand. On the same day she learns of this, a log flume designed by Davis is involved in an accident, and his company has been advised to put him on administrative leave while it is under investigation. Davis has to move into a small apartment and figure out how to win back his wife and keep the respect of his young daughter. In the process he designs a magic carpet ride that he hopes will bring his family back together. Also in the story is his sister Molly; they were both abandoned by their mother but raised by their good father and his companion. Davis also meets an interesting character McGuinn who turns out to be much more complex than he originally thinks. I love the author's use of subtle sarcastic humor, and I really like the characters, including Davis's father and his almost-wife Peti, along with Davis, his sister, and McGuinn. There is a good message here about acceptance and forgiveness told in a humorous way.
    • 3/5
      This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.---THE OPENING Four months from now, on a secluded beach in Turkey, Davis Winger, who came thousands of miles to start over, will drop his towel and paperback on the sand, wade into the sea, and end up under the tire of a Hyundai that has just come screeching over an embankment. He will be trapped under that car, pinned to the seabed with one final breath crowding his lungs. Time enough to lament that his daughter might now grow up without him; that he might never hear words of forgiveness from the woman he adored, and betrayed; that he might not live to build the roller coaster that his six-year-old had dreamed up from a storybook and that he had spent the summer engineering into reality. Constructing that ride, harnessing his daughter’s giddy vision into a set of blueprints, was his best shot at winning back the people he loved and hurt and lost. The promise of redemption was slipping away. All alone and far from home, he’ll reach for the surface as the sea encloses. That autumn day was coming. But today it was still spring, a mild Saturday in May, and when Davis awakened next to his wife in the charmingly overgrown Baltimore neighborhood of Mount Washington, he was still gainfully employed and still welcome in his own home.With an opening like that, how do you follow it up? No really, how do you? How do you get your readers to care about your protagonist and what he's going through when you know this is what he's headed for?Well, enough of that...let's get on with the post.WHAT'S A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO FREE FALL ABOUT?Davis Wagner has one of those jobs that you have a hard time believing people actually have, but clearly, someone does. He designs amusement park rides, like roller coasters. Which is cool enough—but he's witty, friendly, compassionate, has a great daughter, a wonderful wife, and so on. He's close with his sister, his father, and his father's...partner, I guess. (she's lived with him for years, so girlfriend doesn't seem to fit...)—Davis's mother ran off with her therapist when he and Molly were young, leaving them to be raised by their father.But we know from the opening paragraph above, that this charmed life doesn't stay charmed—after introducing the reader to this family, Abramowitz starts dismantling Davis's life—after an accident (that Davis bears no responsibility for), his career is on the line; after something that Davis bears all the responsibility for, his marriage is in shambles and doesn't look like it'll recover. The only thing that Davis has left is his relationship with his young daughter in the summer before her first-grade year.In the (apparently) four months he has left on Earth, can Davis build on the foundation of his relationship with his daughter to save his marriage and career?There are other plotlines, sure, but this is the focus of the book and the weakness of it drags down the rest.MOLLY WINGER—NOT PICTURED The high school yearbook was basically Davis's personal photo album, but when Molly graduated three years later, below her photo it read: “Molly Winger—Not Pictured.” And the thing is, she was pictured. Her photo was right there, above the words “Not Pictured.” That was the essence of Molly. Seen yet somehow undetected. There but unaccounted for. Actually, she preferred it that way.I just loved that idea—well, I mean, it's depressing as all get out when you think about what that says about Molly—but it's a great image.Molly's still pretty undetected. She writes for an independent newspaper—one limping along financially—as if there weren't another kind—primarily writing features, but really doing whatever she has to help keep it afloat. She's dating someone years younger than her, and in no way right for her (or she for him)—she's smart, literate, cultured. He's in his mid-twenties, and when he's not working, he's playing video games or watching horror movies with his "boys."While her brother is trying to put his life back together, Molly stumbles upon a series of articles that will help her confront her own demons, help her readers, and maybe get her detected by people.I'm glad I read this book if only for the Molly storyline/storylines—Abramowitz was at his strongest here. A character you can sympathize with, chuckle at, and hope for.SIBLING RIVALRYAt some point years before we meet them, Davis and Molly started playing this game—Davis would call her out of the blue, and they'd pitch horrible ideas for businesses to each other. For example, a store that sells concert T-shirts for bands that you wouldn't want to wear in public—Hanson, Sheena Easton, Julian Lennon, Spin Doctors, and so on.It's one of those things that makes the most sense in terms of siblings—a running joke that they may not be able to remember the origins of, but it's something they'll always do. When you stop and think about it, it's really sweet.If you don't stop and think that much and just read the ideas? They're hilarious.TOM PETTYSimilarly, Davis amuses himself by working Tom Petty song titles into his conversation around or about one character. It's a strange way of showing affection, but it works. Sure, I think it'd get annoying in real life—but it's exactly my kind of humor.SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO FREE FALL?It took me a long time to be able to care about Davis and his woes, much less his attempts at rehabilitation. I just couldn't shake the opening paragraph. But I eventually came around and appreciated that part of the novel (which is good, because it's the majority).Still, I'd have probably DNFed this if Molly wasn't around—the character and what she does in the novel are its saving graces.Abramowitz can write a sentence—I really enjoyed the voice, the way he told the story (well, after the opening), and the themes he explored. I laughed and was moved, and thought a little about life. A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall is worth the time and effort, you'll enjoy it.
    • 4/5
      Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this as a free Kindle First Reads ebook with my Amazon Prime membership.Story (4/5): This was a well done contemporary fiction about two siblings. The brother, Davis, is a rollercoaster designer who has been put on paid leave because of an accident that happened on a ride he designed. Right after this happens, his wife finds out that during the project he slept with another woman. He's now living on his own in an apartment trying to pull his family and career back together.The sister, Molly, is a journalist at a small time paper, living a comfortable but empty feeling life. She gets the chance to start a new project that is near and dear to her heart and as it gains success, she gains confidence. Both siblings continue to suffer from the way their mother abandoned them at a young age.The story is well written, humorous, and heartfelt. I enjoyed some of the information on engineering rides and enjoyed these characters' stories. There's a lot in here about family and abandonment.Characters (4/5): I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed both characters. I expected to hate Davis after finding out he cheated on his wife, however Abramowitz does an excellent job of making him a somewhat sympathetic character that you feel for. Abramowitz does a very good job at showing how a basically good person can make a one time thoughtless decision (or even a non-decision) that destroys everything. I related to Molly a lot better and enjoyed reading her parts a bit more. Both characters show how much of an impact having a parent leave can have on a person’s life.Setting (4/5): The setting was fine but not the point of the story. Davis travels around a bit but this is mostly a character driven story with some intriguing plot elements going on in the background. Writing Style (4/5): This was easy to read and engaging. Abramowitz alternates POV between Davis and Molly and it worked really well for this story. The characters and their lives were well portrayed and there was humor throughout to lighten things up. The story was written in a very entertaining way, while still providing a lot of food for thought. My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this, even though it is a bit outside of what I would normally read. It was an engaging and entertaining story and the characterization was amazing. I loved watching both characters navigate through their day to day calamities and successes. I also really enjoyed that there was some interesting information on ride engineering and journalism in here as well. While I probably won’t go seeking out more books by Arbamowitz, if I see one pop up somewhere in the future I will probably check it out.