WE ALL FALL DOWN

Two teens brought together by shared history and mental health issues try to break the spell cast by a haunted pedestrian bridge.

Paige suffers from anxiety and Theo from ADHD, and while their longtime friendship means they understand how to support each other at crucial times, it’s their long-simmering romance that brings the haunting into focus. Neither has admitted to the other their mutual interest, but when another boy flirts with Paige at a party, Theo gets into a fight in which he inadvertently hits Paige so hard she loses teeth. The result is Paige is banned from seeing Theo. The bridge has other ideas. On one side of the Muskingum River the bridge spans is a college campus where Paige is in a special program for the summer, and on the other is a small town where Theo works for his uncle in a shaky construction firm. Readers may find themselves hard-pressed to make sense of the nature of this haunted bridge, as vague voices gradually change into more threatening and powerful shadows. Side effects from the medications these two evidently white, middle-class teens are taking also play into the suspense, or at least they seem meant to, but how this plays into the paranormal plot never quite comes clear.

Readers desperate for a romantic paranormal adventure may be satisfied, but they’ll have to abandon logic to get there.