The story of a more or less orphaned half Danish, half African-American adolescent getting used to life in the 'hood, sometimes challenged by and sometimes rewarded for her blue eyes and good hair, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky unfortunately isn't quite as good as scintillating as I wanted it to be. It's particularly sad because the first chapter really got me.
When we meet Rachel, she's just moved to Portland with her African-American grandmother, after the death of her mother and two siblings when they all fell (?) from the roof of their building in Chicago. Only Rachel has survived. She's super intelligent and perceptive, and has sophisticated coping mechanisms, distancing herself from the loneliness of her new surroundings and the horror of her old ones.
I've commented a million times that I'm not crazy about stories told in multiple voices. I generally want to cozy up to one narrator and really get to know her, so the fact that I had to hear from Rachel's neighbor, her mother's boss, and her mother's sadly inarticulate diary kind of hosed me down. I think Durrow is or is going to be a really good writer, but doesn't yet trust her lyrical voice and so instead chose to throw in an element of mystery, and some additional miseries, that I just don't think Rachel or the reader deserves.