If you want to get back into reading, “Trust Fall” by Lynn Painter will become your new best friend. I am a sucker for romance, and Lynn Painter executes it perfectly every time. In this book, after every chapter I finished, I found myself wanting to read the next one; with the different twists and discoveries, I couldn’t put it down.
“Trust Fall” is a new young-adult novel that explores themes of trust, grief, and old money vs. new money. The cover is a perfect representation of fall and themes of love, but the book inside holds much more.
“Trust Fall” is a prep school romance novel that follows an enemies-to-lovers trope. After an unexpected inheritance falls into Julia’s life from her multimillionaire next-door neighbor, she finds her comfortable small-town life transformed into big-city life. Turns out, the man left her family everything, including a 5-story brownstone house in New York City.
The story’s protagonist is high school student Julia Lowell, who is getting used to her new school. She faces two problems: she’s not fitting in, and she’s failing. Throughout this book, you see her become a new person, struggling to figure out why she was given this inheritance as the tensions rise and she puts the pieces together.
The male protagonist, Damion Rutledge, might be Julia’s saving grace or worst nightmare. As a student who attends the same prestigious school, his intentions of helping her as her assigned tutor might be different than what you might think. He has a big secret: he is the great-nephew of the man who left everything to Julia’s family.
As you can imagine, Damion is furious about why his inheritance was given to a family he had no connection with. As the theme of trust shows here, Damion tries to get information out of Julia by earning her trust, but fails due to her uncertainty about him.
As this book takes place in the fall and at an elite prep school, it can remind you of the show Gilmore Girls that has a very similar plot in the first few seasons between Rory and Tristan. This book is perfect for people who love romance and just want a good laugh.
The dialogue between the two characters is sharp, witty, and filled with banter. Both of their dynamics are so different, which is what makes this book so good. A big thing that is really good about this book is that it has both perspectives of the two characters.
Dual POV has been one of my favorite ways of storytelling because it gives you everyone’s thoughts and not just one person’s perspective. While reading “Trust Fall,” I noticed it helps a lot knowing both characters’ thoughts instead of guessing yourself.
Along with the themes in the book, we can see the way Julia struggles with trust while trying to fit into her new school, while Damion struggles with the grief and confusion of losing his family member and his inheritance to someone he does not know.
This book can be relatable to anyone moving to a new town and having their whole lifestyle flipped upside down in a matter of minutes. It truly masters the art of being a new student at a big school and having to fit in where you feel like you don’t belong. Which is what many high school and college students feel today.
I loved the different characters placed in this book because it shows their personality from the start of the book to how they grow and develop towards the end. Especially Julia’s twin brother Liam, who has a hilarious personality that makes you love the book even more.
For anyone looking for another enemies-to-lovers book, “Trust Fall” should be the next one you pick up. With the different plot twists that happen in this book, Julia and Damion will truly live rent-free in your head after reading.
