Nathan Filer's take on children suffering with trauma and mental illness is an interesting yet complicated novel that I found slightly difficult to read.

At first glance at the blurb, I was imagining some form of crime or mystery novel, as I often pick books up second-hand and don't do any research into them before reading. So with the false expectation that this was going to be a thrilling murder case, I got very confused when it opened with a long-winded introduction into a six year old boy's average life with a slightly over-protective mother. While the story continued to somehow get more confusing the more I read, I started to somewhat understand young Matthew's character.

At this point, I have to truly say that I did lose interest, as all I knew was that this little boy's brother, who was somehow different, would die by the end of the book, and that Matthew felt responsible. About halfway through I realised that this was not a crime novel, but a child's life with diagnosed Schizophrenia and PTSD(these aren't spoilers).

Overall, after I finally understood what was going on in the book (with the help of online research) and figured out the odd switching between time, I really wasn't overwhelmed by the story. The first-person glance at a life with schizophrenia was interesting as something I'd never read before, but the cryptical mystery created by not explaining when or why things were happening just left m baffled and bored a lot of the time.

So my rating for The Shock of The Fall will be a 2/10, as I personally did not enjoy it. But that's not to say it isn't a good book, maybe you'll enjoy it...