A Step Toward Falling(2015)

 

A Step Toward Falling(2015)

Author: Cammie McGovern

Pages:384

Published on October 6th 2015 by HarperTeen

Rating:4/5 stars

Start date: 2022.02.05

Finish date: 2022.02.05

Summary:

Emily is an average teenage girl part of the 'geek' crowd, while Lucas is a popular football player. Their lives had almost nothing in common, until they both witness Belinda, a student with development disabilities, get attacked.And they do nothing about it. After the incident, they get sent to volunteer at a center for the disabled. They learned to communicate and to interact with these people, while gradually getting to know each other along the way. When Belinda returned to school, they tried to apologize and make up for their mistakes by putting on a play with Belinda(who had an amazing acting ability) as the main character. The play didn't start off well with the lack of participants and miscommunication, but the three characters grew and learned from their mistakes in the past. Lucas started to have the courage to leave his toxic friend group, while Emily started to actually help solve problems for the disabled community. Belinda learned to cherish the people around her and put her trauma in the past.

My review:

This book exceeded my expectations and I was truly touched by how the three main characters changed. Lucas and Emily were both kind at heart, but they didn't have the courage to actually speak out on a problem. They ran away, like most of us would, facing a terrible situation they didn't want to witness. However, they both owned up for their mistakes right away with no excuses, even if they did have a way of talking themselves out of punishment. I think the biggest change was their attitude in the classes. At first they weren't really into it. They tried, but their minds weren't fully focused. By the last classes, they even offered to put on a play with Belinda and Anthony which took so much effort for the both of them. That was the point where I realized that they had grown so much. I thought Emily would be the main lead of all the ideas, but it was actually Lucas, which surprised me just as much as it surprised Emily. Like the movie Pride and Prejudice, which they often mentioned in the book, I judged Lucas for far less than what he was merely by the impression that football boys gave me. It felt like learning a lesson along with the main characters while reading this book.

The growth between Emily and Lucas's relationship is also really sweet. It felt so genuine and not rushed, because they were working towards a goal which both of them badly wanted to achieve. Emily thought that they didn't have much in common, but by the end of the book, she was learning valuable traits from Lucas as well. Not only did they grow on their own, but they helped each other out through hard times.

This book talks a lot about those with special needs-how they think, how they are treated, and how they are deceived as children. For example, Belinda's nan may have seemed like she knew what was best for Belinda, when in fact, it wasn't, if not worse. Because of her disabilities, Belinda doesn't really know how to interact with people, meaning if someone told her not to do something, she would firmly stick to the rule. Belinda's nan didn't want anyone to talk about what happened at the football game in front of Belinda, and I believe that Belinda might have been more comfortable about the topic earlier if it wasn't for that rule. It was as if blocking out or running from a problem was better than actually facing it. Emily also spoke about this topic to the principal, by stating that it was illegal for the school to forbid students with special needs from attending extracurricular activities. She said that if Belinda had the chance to interact with the other students of the school, she would have been less vulnerable that day which could have prevented the incident from happening. I had never really seen it from that point of view, but after reading what Emily said, I really agreed with it. I am not against people with special needs having separate and different treatment, but I do not think it is necessary to isolate them from the rest of the world. There will be someday that they find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings, and they will need to know how to react and what to stay away from. Having them depend on other people could make them even more vulnerable than they already were. People without special needs also need more educating on the topic. even though schools mention it once or twice a year, nobody really knows what to do when they are faced in that situation.

Many people of my country are almost ignorant when it comes to this topic. They make jokes about it, not realizing it's those exact actions which make the matters worse and harder to change, just like one of Emily's friends in the book. Children with disabilities usually go to a special school, so we don't get much interaction with them, and people joke around around as if it's a school for the dumb. It infuriates me, yet like Emily and Lucas at the beginning of the book, I have never actually done anything to change it. I don't even have the courage to call my friends out. After reading this book, it did motivate me to change my actions and made me want to learn more about the community. I gave this book a 5/5 rating because it raises so much awareness in just one book and can deeply touch the reader's heart.