The Opposite of Falling Apart
by Micah GoodPublisher: Wattpad Books
Release Date: February 25th 2020
Genre: Young Adult, Fiction, Contemporary
Synopsis:
After losing his leg in a terrible car accident, Jonas Avery can’t wait to start over and go to college.
Brennan Davis would like nothing more than to stay home and go to school, so she can keep her anxiety in check.
When the two accidentally meet the summer before they move away, they’ll push each other to come to terms with what’s holding them back, even as they’re pulled closer to taking the biggest leap of all—falling in love.
The Opposite of Falling Apart has more than 2.1 million reads on Wattpad.
Can you briefly describe THE OPPOSITE OF FALLING APART and its characters?
The Opposite of Falling Apart is about Jonas, a teenage amputee who lost his leg in a tragic car accident and is suffering from PTSD and Brennan, a girl struggling with anxiety and the fear of her impending freshman year at college. The story is about learning to accept the things that you might think make you broken and realizing that they are the things that make you human.
Who would you say is your favorite character from the story and why?
I think, aside from the main characters, that Mrs. Avery (Jonas’s mom) is my favorite character. She is loving and supportive, and even if she doesn’t always know how to help Jonas, she always tries her best, and keeps trying. She’s a lot like my real-life mom, and that makes her special to me.
How did the story occur to you? Did you find inspiration anywhere?
When I first went off to college, I found solace in books. I was super anxious (like Brennan) and found the worlds in books a lot less overwhelming than the real world. At the time, I had a hard time finding many books that really made me go ‘that’s me. I see me in this story’. In the years since, I’ve noticed that mental health is starting to be more of an accepted topic in books. It’s a lot easier to find now! But in the in between time, when it wasn’t as easy, I started writing what would become ‘The Opposite of Falling Apart’, because I hoped (and still do hope) that it might give even a few readers the chance to say ‘that’s me. I see me in this story’.
If you could choose one song to describe your book, which one would it be?
Oh, this is a hard one, because I have a whole playlist of songs that remind me of the book and the characters! I think it’s usually easier for me to pick songs that remind me of particular characters, because I’ll hear lyrics and think ‘that’s Brennan!’ or ‘hey, it’s Jonas!’. If I had to pick a song for the story as a whole, I think it’d be either “The Good Parts” by Andy Grammer or “Intertwined” by Dodie Clark.
If your book was going to be made into a movie, who would play your characters?
And here I thought choosing just one song for the story was hard! I used to be set on making a cast for any book I wrote, but by the time TOOFA came around, I was more in a mindset where I wanted to let readers be able to picture the characters in their head, unhindered by any cast I might make. This is why: I was a little late to the whole Harry Potter craze and read the books after all the movies were out. I’d seen pictures of the actors as their respective characters, so I didn’t get the experience of picturing the characters in my head first, which is a part of the reading experience that I really love. I do think I would want to see some new actors cast in TOOFA, some we haven’t really seen before, if it were made into a movie. Brennan is probably the only character I’ve kind of given a real-life counterpart in my head, and that’s because I tend to picture her as a somewhat shorter Dodie Clark.
What drink and place do you think will go with your book to have a perfect book date?
I think that you and TOOFA should have a book date at a diner. Get yourself some breakfast food, and a drink of your choice (hot tea, coffee, milk, or orange juice—it’s all acceptable: if the diner has it, it’s fair game) and tuck into a booth with the story. Bonus points if you’re doing this in the very early hours of the morning, like between one to four am.
Can you recommend your readers any other books in case they are left hungry for more once they finish THE OPPOSITE OF FALLING APART?
I like “Fangirl” by Rainbow Rowell. John Green’s “Turtles All the Way Down” is good. Also “All the Bright Places” by Jennifer Niven and “Five Feet Apart” by Rachel Lippincott. I do want to warn that some of these stories may be triggering to you, depending on what place your mental health is in right now. I believe it’s important to take care of yourself, and if that means not reading a particular book, so be it. A lot of these books deal with mental health, and one of them does deal with suicide/suicidal thoughts.
What’s next for you?
I’m heading back to Fantasy, which is actually where I got my writing start. Hopefully I’ll have more on that soon!
Micah Good has been writing since middle school. She’s been writing stories on Wattpad since the summer before her freshman year of college. Her stories have been featured, won a Watty, and she was invited to participate in Wattpad’s Paid Stories program. She currently lives in the midwestern United States, where she is pursuing a career in nursing. She loves dogs, naps and getting lost in a book.
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