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Reviewed by Angie Gallion Lovell for Readers' Favorite
I read The Fall by Silvia Cristina Valentini in one sitting. It’s a novel based on true events and through most of the novel I was furious at the ineptitude and outright disregard our heroine, Sarah Martinelli, is faced with. She is the victim of an elevator accident in her workplace and from the very beginning she is discounted at every turn. The bureaucracy that Sarah Martinelli comes up against in trying to deal with the ramifications of her accident is nothing short of criminal. The company CEO, Dennis O’Connell, one of several villains in this tale, gives the faulty elevator a pass, just waiting for the next tragic accident to occur, as if he doesn’t believe she has suffered a fall from the third floor of the building to the basement.
Valentini’s writing style in The Fall is succinct, without a great deal of flourish. The pace keeps you moving forward. Valentini takes us on a journey of a broken life, shattered by the negligence of others. Our resilient and persistent heroine, Sarah Martinelli, is thrown into a world of corruption where doctors, lawyers, medical examiners, and employers look out for their own bottom line without consideration or concern for the injured party. There is real drama as the company Martinelli worked for, a religion-based organization with the goal of helping people, does nothing to aid her, and in fact tries to discredit the validity of her claim. More than once her manager, O’Connell, “prayed for her” and his other employees, while doing nothing to afford them safe passage on the ancient elevator in the building. Valentini’s tale, The Fall, does have a saving grace in the end, but the path to get there is painful. I was compelled to keep reading because I had to know that there was some little bit of justice left in the world. This is a classic page turner made all the more compelling because it is based on true events.
