The Friday 56 (With Book Beginnings): The Fall by Bethany Griffin

Welcome to The Friday 56, a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice.

These are the rules:
1. Grab a book, any book.
2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.
4. Post it.
5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post.

I'm also taking part in Book Beginnings, a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader.  The rules are pretty simple - you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires.  Don't forget to link up your post's url with Rose City Reader.

This week I am spotlighting my current read, The Fall by Bethany Griffin.  It is a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher as told from Madeline's perspective.  I haven't read anything else by this author, but I was quite excited to hear about this retelling.  I've always enjoyed the original story (and you can't forget the movie with Vincent Price!).  I'm quite liking it - Madeline is a good unreliable narrator and the story is very atmospheric, even if the narration is a bit disjointed.  By the way, when I say disjointed, I mean it in a good way.  I'm about 40% of the way through and I'm enjoying where Griffin is taking the story and the characters.

My Book Beginnings:

The first thing I notice is that my blanket is gone.  The last of my nightly rituals is to pull it all the way to my chin, and it never falls away, no matter what nightmares I wrestle before I wake.

But something else is wrong; I try to move, and though I don't seem to be paralyzed, my arms are pinned tightly to my sides.  My brain is slow; the horror saturates me gradually.  I struggle, twist to the left, and free one arm.

My 56:

But time moves slowly when you are alone in this house.  Sometimes I suspect it doesn't move at all; I could be reliving the same monotonous days over and over, and I would never know.