I will admit this book was very well written, and kept me turning pages. But after getting through half the book, I was so frustrated and disgusted, I threw the book across the room. I forced myself to put it away, and only return to it when I knew that I could distance myself from the characters and read the rest without feeling as if my body and soul had been run over by a truck. "Fall on Your Knees" is that exhausting.

I definitely enjoy a challenging read, one where characters don't lead easy lives and work to achieve things as they grow. This book definitely fit into that category, but there was no progress or relief at all. All the characters led miserable, dark lives and the only way they seemed to escape their torture was by dying. I felt as if my emotions were being constantly manipulated, and while I definitely respect an author who has the power to do that with his/her words, there *has* to be a limit. A reader should experience some grief along with the characters, but when it continues for hundreds of pages, there has to be a time to step away. And so I did.

Reading this book almost made me vow to stay away from anything but the fluffy mysteries I indulge in every so often. And that's a truly scary thought to me, wanting to turn my back on books that make me think and feel. I really hate that this book made me question my tolerance as a reader. Being well written can only take a book so far, there has to be *some* heart in the middle of grief. There is none of that here. If you like your books raw and powerful, almost cruel, go ahead and buy this. But if you are tired of your emotions being manipulated and
tossed around, skip it.

Ann-Marie MacDonald's "Fall on Your Knees" is an ambitious novel that chronicles the saga of the Piper family, who live in Cape Breton Island off Nova Scotia in Canada. The narrative starts in 1898 and ends in the middle of the twentieth century. It starts with eighteen-year-old James Piper's ill-fated love affair with Materia Mahmoud, a girl of twelve whose family is wealthy and powerful. James and Materia elope, and the Mahmouds are outraged. As the years pass, James and Materia start a family of their own, and it soon becomes apparent that the Pipers are destined to suffer.

MacDonald is a talented writer who experiments interestingly with the written word. She takes off on literary flights of fancy, using interesting metaphors, magical realism and delightful humor to hold the reader's interest throughout this five hundred page epic. The characters are uniformly well drawn. They include Materia, the clueless matriarch, who soon realizes that she has gotten in over her head when she married James; Kathleen, the gorgeous daughter with a glorious singing voice and gigantic ambition; Mercedes, the compassionate and religious sister who tries to keep the family from falling apart after a series of devastating tragedies befall them; and the father, James, a deeply flawed individual who is responsible for many of the terrible events that wreck his family.

"Fall on Your Knees" is an account of a bizarre family dynamic. MacDonald depicts the horrible pain that people inflict on their "loved ones" through weakness, malice or perversity. Ultimately, "Fall on Your Knees" sinks somewhat under its own melodramatic weight. However, I still recommend that you read this unusual novel so that you can savor the sheer virtuosity of Ann-Marie MacDonald's original writing style.

From the onset of this novel, one is intrigued by the realism of the narration. No narrator is plagued with a God-like knowledge of their surroundings, they know only what they experience. That is the key to the beauty of Fall on Your Knees.
Macdonald manages to create a dark world, focusing on the Piper family. Her ability to immerse the reader in the experiences of this family is a gift. When I began reading, however, I was not quite so enthralled with it. I thought it was strange, a bit wordy, and confusing. It was so intense and disturbing, however, that I was unable to set it aside. So, I continued reading, and I am so glad I did. It was only the end that made me fall in love with this book. The ending sums up the book, and you begin to realize what everything you previously read meant. It was a moment of realization when everything comes together. You realize that every word that Macdonald uses has been chosen for a particular reason, nothing in this book, contrary to what it seems is haphazard. At the end, I found myself wanting to go back and reread certain parts, knowing what I knew from the end of the book, to see what I had miss. It was like a movie, that needed to be watched again knowing the 'secret' and wanting to test the limits to see how well-written it was that certain subteleties that escaped the first time are blatant, important scenes, after all. This is one book that won't leave me for a long time. It is so incredibly well-written, the world of the Pipers now exists somewhere inside of me, no matter how disturbing that may be.