BookBrowse has a new look! Learn more about the update here.

Reviews of As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins

As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins

As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth

by Lynne Rae Perkins
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • May 1, 2010
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2012
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

Train. Car. Plane. Boat. Feet.
He'll get there.
Won't he?

Train.

Car.

Plane.

Boat.

Feet.

He'll get there.

Won't he?

Wait

Wait a minute.

Was the - had the train just moved?

Ry turned his head to look at it straight on, but it sat on the tracks, as still as the lumpy brown hill he was climbing. As still as the grass that baked in gentle swells as far as he could see and the air in the empty blue sky.

He must have imagined it. Nothing had moved. Everything was the same.

But there it was again. Was it because he blinked? Maybe it was the water in his eyes; it had wobbled up his vision.

He picked out a post alongside the tracks, directly below the line where the logo on the train changed from red to blue. As he watched, the red and the blue shifted almost imperceptibly to the right above the post. Then perceptibly. The train was moving.

"Wait," Ry said aloud.

Because it wasn't supposed to move yet. The conductor had said - the conductor had said forty minutes. Ry was supposed to be on the train. After a full second of hesitation, he went scrambling down the steep rubbled face of the hill. ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Yes. Ry gets there. By train, car, plane, boat and feet. But also, truly, he gets there by head, heart, and whole body - by connecting with Del, himself and ultimately the world around him...continued

Full Review (610 words)

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by Tamara Ellis Smith).

Media Reviews

The New York Times - Monica Edinger
Some may scoff at the improbability of the events that unfold in this novel, not to mention, for Ry, several near misses with death. But the reader who is willing to suspend disbelief and, like Del, is ready to defy any suggestion of impossibility, will be rewarded with a rich, eventful and extremely entertaining summer road trip.

Booklist
Starred Review. Relentlessly entertaining… an absolute delight.

Horn Book
Starred Review. Wherever Perkins's warm, funny, wise narrative goes is where a reader wants to be.

Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. A long, immensely enjoyable, curiously comforting ramble through an absurd-but-benign world. Ages 12+

Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A humorous additional narrative, 'Dogs,' told in comic strip format, mimics Del's and Ry's story, and continues Perkins's experimentation with form. Ages 12-up.

School Library Journal
This novel is not going to be every teen boy's cup of tea, but its charms are undeniable.

Reader Reviews

TotsMcGots

SUCKED
The plot was slow and the book was terrible! So uneventfull!

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



The Ramphos

While journeying to find his parents, Ry took a train, a car, a plane and a boat. Four separate vehicles. But what if he could have simply taken one? What if there were such a vehicle? One that could operate on land, water and in the air?

There is! Check out the Ramphos!

Ramphos


While it looks just like something slightly crazy Del would have patch-worked together and you would skeptically (and warily) wonder if it would crash into a million pieces the minute you started the engine, the Ramphos, made in Italy, is an ingenious, amphibious flying vehicle. It looks like a hang-glider attached to a boat with retractable wheels, and can take off and land on land or water. It uses standard car gasoline or ...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth, try these:

We have 5 read-alikes for As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Lynne Rae Perkins
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Become a Member

Join BookBrowse today to start
discovering exceptional books!
Find Out More

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Briar Club
    The Briar Club
    by Kate Quinn
    Kate Quinn's novel The Briar Club opens with a murder on Thanksgiving Day, 1954. Police are on the ...
  • Book Jacket: Bury Your Gays
    Bury Your Gays
    by Chuck Tingle
    Chuck Tingle, for those who don't know, is the pseudonym of an eccentric writer best known for his ...
  • Book Jacket: Blue Ruin
    Blue Ruin
    by Hari Kunzru
    Like Red Pill and White Tears, the first two novels in Hari Kunzru's loosely connected Three-...
  • Book Jacket: A Gentleman and a Thief
    A Gentleman and a Thief
    by Dean Jobb
    In the Roaring Twenties—an era known for its flash and glamour as well as its gangsters and ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The 1619 Project
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
An impactful expansion of groundbreaking journalism, The 1619 Project offers a revealing vision of America's past and present.
Book Jacket
Lady Tan's Circle of Women
by Lisa See
Lisa See's latest historical novel, inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl
    by Bart Yates

    A saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

L T C O of the B

and be entered to win..

Win This Book
Win Smothermoss

Smothermoss by Alisa Alering

A haunting, imaginative, and twisting tale of two sisters and the menacing, unexplained forces that threaten them and their rural mountain community.

Enter