Meredith’s parents don’t know how to handle their daughter anymore Meredith’s crisis has come less than a year after her beloved elder brother, a star baseball player, lost his eye in a devastating baseball accident that almost destroyed him. She spends most of her time in her room obsessing over the kidnapping, imagining what may have happened if the robber had taken them both. Meanwhile, Meredith’s own family mourn the loss of Meredith, who despite having eluded a kidnapping, is lost in other ways.

Meredith becomes obsessed with Lisa Bellow, the girl she hated, and becomes embroiled in Lisa’s life – she is appropriated by Lisa’s friends and befriended by Lisa’s mother, a single mother desperately missing her daughter. As each day passes, the mystery of Lisa’s disappearance deepens. In a terrifying ordeal, Meredith is left on the floor wondering what’s happening, and she’s the one who must return to school and take Lisa’s place among the cool set. When, by a twist of fate, the two end up in a sandwich shop after school and it’s held up by a masked robber, Lisa Bellow is the one the masked man chooses to kidnap. Their paths rarely cross even though Lisa and Meredith have adjoining lockers, but Lisa is way too cool to deign to look at Meredith – except for one time when she teases her in front of the whole school, a humiliation Meredith can’t forget. Meredith Oliver is in grade eight at the same middle school as Lisa Bellow.

The Lisa Bellow of the title is the archetypal mean schoolgirl – 14-years-old, slender, popular and very beautiful – but despite being central to this novel in many ways, it’s one of the uncool girls that this novel is about. With her insightful depiction of growing up and parenting, written with delicate humour and skillful characterisation, Susan Perabo delivers a touching, elegant story in an original way. The Fall of Lisa Bellow is a thoughtful and powerful novel about the spiraling effects of two random calamities on one ordinary family.

The fall of lisa bellow by susan perabo