Where to start with this book... I just finished the ARC. It may take a while before I'm positive how I feel about it. It is undoubtedly a story that celebrates the indomitable human spirit, but at the same time condemns some parts of our very nature. On the surface it seems simple - a diary of a young girl going through an epidemic - but it's anything but. 
 It is realistic to a fault. If you can conceive of a character dying, they will. A tragedy you can come up with will probably happen. I appreciate this in a story. No fairy tale miracles save anyone. This is not a inspirational story about a community pulling together. This is a very believable depiction of what would actually happen in a small community under quarantine and isolation. And, I should add here, Megan Crewe did it far better than Stephen King. 
 The characters are people from your real life. They are sometimes strong, sometimes frail, profoundly affected by their circumstances and struggling to survive. There are no purely good guys, and very few truly bad. They make mistakes, and as a the title implies, they sometimes fall. None of them are spectacular heroes, they are just normal folks. 
 The diary format of the novel is uniquely suited to put strong emotion into the plot, to give you greater character insight than you might have otherwise had. Kaelyn is uniquely strong. Not badass strong, or raw determination strong. But strong in a quiet way, strong like a plant that continually grows back each time you cut it down, without shouts or revolutions or daring heroics. She is strong in a way that an everyday person could hope to be strong - by loving her family, protecting them with the resources she has no matter what, and never giving up hope. 
 There are two reasons I didn't give this book five stars. First, it's almost too dark. It has an air of hopelessness, even at the end, that is hard to get past. There is still that soft resolution to carry on, but the reader is almost left traumatized by everything that happens. I have never been one to shy away from darkness or death in my literature, but this book feels so...personal, that's it's hard to be detached from it. I suppose that's part of the point, in being completely realistic, it leaves you almost as affected as someone who lived through such a tragedy. 
 The second reason is that the romance was not as well done as it could have been. I believed it, for the most part, but it was very sudden and felt out of place sometimes. I also wanted a bit more development for Gav, her love interest. 
 But there is no doubt I will read a sequel to this book. The ending leaves you no room to just walk away. I highly recommend this book, but it is NOT for the faint of heart.