The Year We Fell Down

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Synopsis

With a hockey coach father, the sport has always been a big part of Corey Callhan's life. She expected to start college, playing on the hockey team, but a devastating accident during her senior year of high school has left her partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair most of the time. Without the sport that she loves, she's feeling adrift and not sure what she wants to do with her life. As she tries to figure it all out, Adam Hartley, the hot guy in the other handicapped-accessible dorm across the hall catches her eye. Hartley is a fellow hockey player, who broke his leg in two places and is stuck in the handicapped dorms until he heals, but unfortunately he's already taken. However, he shares classes and mealtimes with Corey, so they quickly become friends. With his girlfriend, Stacia, doing a semester abroad and both he and Corey being in the "gimp" club, they also spend a lot of downtime together, playing video games. Soon Corey can't help but start to fall for Hartley, but with her disability, she isn't even sure if she can enjoy sex anymore. When Hartley finds out about Corey's dilemma and Stacia stand him up for a date on his birthday, one thing leads to another, with Hartley and Corey embarking on a little sexual experiment. But things get really awkward when Stacia finally returns home, and Hartley finds himself torn between his trophy girlfriend and the girl who really seems to get him. In the meantime, Corey tries to forget Hartley and get on with her life, but he keeps turning up everywhere, making it impossible.

Review

The Year We Fell Down is the first book in Sarina Bowen's The Ivy Years new adult romance series that follows students at the fictional Ivy League Harkness College. During her senior year of high school, Corey suffered a serious injury during a hockey game that left her legs partially paralyzed. It's also been emotionally difficult to no longer be able to play the sport that was such a huge part of her life for a long time. Tired of her parents hovering, though, she's decided to attend her first year at Harkness College after all. The college has set her up in a handicapped-accessible dorm room, and her across-the-hall neighbor is handsome fellow hockey player Adam Hartley (who everyone simply calls Hartley). Hartley broke his leg in two place from falling during a drunken rock climbing wall accident, so he's been temporarily assigned to the accessible dorms. Bonding over their shared disabilities and their love of hockey, Corey and Hartley become close friends, frequently playing a hockey video game together. Corey is very attracted to Hartley, but he's dating Stacia, a Harkness student who's spending the fall semester abroad in Europe. It seems they're destined to only be friends until Corey confesses to Hartley that she fears her paralysis might affect her ability to feel anything during sex. Then Stacia stands Hartley up on his birthday, leading to him proposing a little sexual experiment to Corey. Afterward things get a bit awkward between them, especially after Stacia finally returns home. Hartley's feelings for Corey have grown, but he's torn between her and Stacia and struggles with making the right decision. Meanwhile Corey is trying to forget Hartley, but he keeps turning up everywhere, making it all but impossible, and she, too, is struggling with trying to find a new tribe and accept that her hockey-playing days are over.

Since Corey's father is a hockey coach, the sport has always been a big part of her life, and she loved playing it. However, the catastrophic injury she suffered put an end to that overnight. She was tough and determined, though, to recover as much as possible. She can walk short distances with leg braces and forearm crutches, and the rest of the time, she gets around in a wheelchair. However, it can sometimes be a challenge since the world isn't always friendly toward the disabled. At least she's been able to secure an accessible dorm room at Harkness, where she hopes to escape her parents babying, and she's been lucky in her roommate assignment. Then there's the hot guy across the hall, who understands her love of hockey. Since his girlfriend is away for the semester, she and Hartley spend many an evening playing RealStix, a hockey video game. They become close friends, and Corey would like it to be more, if only he wasn't already taken. Things change the night that she and Hartley engage in a little sexual experiment, designed to discover whether she can still enjoy it, but when Stacia returns, things get awkward. Corey tries to avoid Hartley for her own self-preservation, but he keeps randomly showing up, trying to go back to the way things were before, when they were just friends. Also in an effort to forget that she'll never play hockey again, Corey must work at finding a new tribe to call her own. I found Corey's disability and the struggles she encounters because of it very relatable. The world just isn't geared toward people who are different, so unfortunately it requires a lot more effort for her to be a part of it. She navigates it all with a lot of dignity and grace, proving how strong she is. She also behaves in a mature way with Hartley, hoping that he'll eventually choose her but being realistic about the possibility that he won't.

Hartley was raised by a single mom and never knew his dad who refused to step up when his mom told him of her pregnancy. During the summer before college started, Hartley made a stupid move, climbing a rock wall while drunk that resulted in his falling and breaking his leg. Now he's been assigned to the accessible dorm, too. He's been in a relationship with Stacia for a while, but it's easy to see that he doesn't genuinely love her. I have to admit that I was a little antsy for an explanation as to why he was with someone who was so obviously ill-suited to him, mainly because it made him seem rather shallow, even though I could tell that he really wasn't. This bit of information isn't related until toward the end of the story, though. Once we get there, it finally made sense and his reasons were sympathetic, if misguided. Up to that point, Hartley discovers an instant rapport with Corey, and they spend a lot of time together, just playing video games or watching movies while their friends are out partying, as well as sharing classes and mealtimes. Hartley starts to really vibe with Corey, so when he's feeling down about Stacia not showing up for his birthday, he decides to spend the night with Corey instead, sexually experimenting with her. Their encounter starts to make him realize that she's everything he's been looking for in a girlfriend but doesn't have. However, he's still torn between his desire for Corey and his desire for something else he's missing that he had hoped being with Stacia would fix.

Deep down Hartley's a good guy, who sees Corey for who she is and not just the wheelchair or the crutches. He goes out of his way to make her comfortable and is a great friend. I like that he's not a player. While his friends are out sleeping around, Hartley is faithful to Stacia even though it's pretty much an open secret that she's not being faithful to him while she's abroad. He does have the one slip-up with Corey, but it didn't really bother me, since Stacia wasn't treating him with respect. Once he gets his head on straight, I really liked the grand gesture he made toward Corey that showed how much he cared for her.

Overall, The Year We Fell Down was a very good read. Although I'm not usually a big fan of sports romances, I can be persuaded to read them by other story elements that interest me and this one had some appealing ones in the friends-to-lovers trope and disability rep. It did begin a bit slowly for me, though. While I am a big fan of friends-to-lovers romances, I was feeling like Hartley and Corey were in the friend-zone a little too long, and I was eager for something more to happen between them. Things start to pick up once they get to their sexual experiment on Hartley's birthday, although the aftermath is awkward because of Stacia still being in the way. I'm not typically a fan of love triangles, and there were times when I wished Stacia wasn't in the picture, but at the same time, I can buy into almost anything, depending on how the story is told. As far as this one, I felt like it was constructed pretty well. Once it's revealed, I understood Hartley's reason for being with Stacia. While it could be viewed as him kind of using her, I think he was genuinely trying to make it work between them until his feelings for Corey, and his realization of how completely different she is, finally made it glaringly obvious to him that Stacia was all wrong for him. Both Hartley and Corey were relatable characters and I felt that they were good together as both friends and a romantic couple. The supporting cast were great, too. Corey's roommate, Dana, turns out to be a good friend to her as well. Then there's Hartley's best friend, Bridger, who becomes the hero of the next book, The Year We Hid Away. He very much intrigues me, so I look forward to his book. The Year We Fell Down might not have been a perfect story for me, but I did still enjoy it. It was my first read by Sarina Bowen, but I definitely plan on continuing the series soon.

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Sarina Bowen

Themes

Friends Before Lovers
Medical Drama
Physically Imperfect Heroines