Reviews

Faultland by Suzy Vitello

100pagesaday's review

3.0

A devastating earthquake hits Portland in the year 2030.  The earthquake instantly kills, injuries and cuts off many from clean water, food and medical help.  Among the survivors are the dysfunctional Sparrow family. Eldest sibling, Olivia, the keeper of the family trauma, is attempting to get out of downtown and back to her daughter and family home.  Sherman, owner of a dispensary bed and breakfast and Morgan, the family risk taker are both at the family home taking care of their aging father, Clyde along with Olivia's daughter, Melanie and Clyde's nurse, Wanda when the quake hits. The unlikely team of survivors now must make decisions that impact others as well as themselves.  While they are trying to sort through the trauma, the Sparrows uncover the source of their family strife, a secret that their family kept for decades that hurt many others along the way. 

Faultland is an unexpected family drama that slowly unfolds after a major earthquake Portland. Set ten years in the future, the consequences of the current COVID-19 pandemic and fallout from the Trump presidency play a large part in how the world now works. It was interesting to see how this impacted daily life in the not too distant future.  Faultland is carried by the characters. None of the characters are especially good, and I didn't find myself rooting for anyone in particular.  The earthquake forced the Sparrow siblings to come to terms with their childhood and make decisions for the greater good that they would have never made before.  The secret that Clyde had kept had far reaching effects. The author weaves parts of the secret through the story through the memories of each character so that it seems more important to their personal stories than the whole at first and does not fully connect till the end.  

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 

gmiller117's review

adventurous emotional informative reflective tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

thegingerbookeditor's review

4.0

Faultland hit home for me as an Oregon native who's dealt with nearly as much family drama as the main characters Morgan, Sherman, and Olivia. The novel follows the family dynamics of these characters in the year 2030, with all too realistic future technology (Apple Watches on steroids) and events (mentions of a former pandemic and climate change) included. The novel addresses many of the anxieties held in the Pacific Northwest, with the major anxiety of an unpredictable earthquake we all call the Big One seemingly pervading everyone's mind, even to the level of sarcasm. I enjoyed the realism in the book to the culture of Portland, as the characters are messy and raw just like our city has come to be. My best friend (another Oregon native) and I used to joke that Portland was just a city of "sad children masking ourselves as granola freaks. There's nothing better for us to do but smoke weed and drink coffee." While hilarious as a reference for myself, unfortunately Faultland's characters are a great example of that statement. The characters are masking their pain of their lives only to be upheaved by the earthquake. The panic that ensues matches that of what I feel I'd do in this situation. If I didn't already think about the earthquake every time I cross a Portland Bridge, I most certain will now with this book in the back of my mind.

polarclaire's review

3.0

Here I am once again saying that I have read another book that is out of my normal "reading comfort zone" but I still gave it a shot anyway! Faultland is an adult disaster-ish novel set in the (hard to say it, pretty near) that closely follows a family separated on different sides of the Willamette River in Portland (WOO PORTLAND REPRESENT!) after a tragic earthquake. Fires have started, bridges have collapsed, disasters have harshly struck the city, and chaos and uncovered secrets ensue. The story starts with a few short chapters of meeting the family and life "before" then relatively quickly goes into an explanation of the earthquake and how the family experiences it.

The story itself was interesting to follow. There is ~a lot~ of family drama that unpacks here, people. As a person with two other siblings, I can only hope that I don't have to go through what all Olivia, Sherman, and Morgan did. There were times that I read in shock, in grief, and in suspense, it definitely has the whole package here. My only issue with the book was that I didn't really care for the writing style…I'm not quite sure how to explain it, I just felt like it was a bit too simple for me (as someone who reads a lot of fantasy/high fantasy lol). Also, I am someone who does not like reading about tragic things and gets way too into my head about things like that so reading this gave me a bit of anxiety, especially since I am living in Portland at the moment...ha. Either way, the book was pretty decent! Not sure how many more disaster novels I can read anymore, though.

rach6501's review

5.0

Set in 2030, Faultland follows the members of the Sparrow family as they try to survive in the aftermath of a gigantic earthquake that devastates Portland, Oregon. Even as the family reunites, secrets they thought long-buried threaten to resurface.
This book is set in the near future, and there are so many parts of it that feel so real. It was certainly a harrowing read that had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. There were so many twists and turns, and it felt impossible to guess just what was going to happen in the next scene.
I loved the character development in this book. The story is told from multiple points of view, and we get a glimpse into the world of each of the Sparrow children and how they have navigated life thus far with quite a strange, fractured family dynamic. There is a lot of introspection from the characters in the book, and it was interesting to see how all their thoughts connected as they slowly grew to understand each other better and make it to the end better people than before the earthquake.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a fast-paced book that has a lot of underlying meaning. Even though Faultland is set in the future, it tackles a lot of issues that are prevalent in today's world, including racism, Nazi ideologies and their harmfulness, and police corruption.

hmcendree's review

emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

What an interesting premise!! I mostly enjoyed reading this book. I found the future created to be intriguing, although some of the aspects could have been more fleshed out. It was a quick read and I definitely wanted to find out what happened to the characters.

*I received a digital copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review.