What’s in a Name?

This post contains spoilers for All Falling Things.

Though most of the characters in this book are connected by name only to AIW (mostly the secondary characters), there are a couple who are based more around characteristics. Because of this, I had a little more room to play with their names. I really like finding names that are significant to the character in some way.

Take Kya Asho, the woman that becomes Alice’s bestie. Kya means “diamond”; Asho means “pure of heart.” She embodies both these things (diamond by way of her sparkly personality – it also alludes to a stressful backstory, which we don’t get to in this book).

Then there is Lucas Shiri. Now, if you don’t want a major spoiler…stop reading right now.

Lucas means “light”. Shiri means “song of my soul.” In the original ending of this book, one of Alice’s goals was going to be to explore her relationship with Lucas. It was in my head from the start that she and Lucas were soul mates (if such a thing exists). Sorry to those that were #TeamStanley – he was never meant to be her forever. Lucas is. BUT – I didn’t want this story to be about “finding a man.” Love is wonderful – but it’s not what Alice came all the way to Chicago to seek. The story instead ends with her finding herself. (Also, at the end of the book, she is intrigued by Lucas, but their romance has not yet bloomed. Alice was telling the truth when she told Stanley there was nothing between them.)

And then there’s Cat. Again, it was never my intent for Cat and Stanley to end up together. (Don’t worry – their loves are out there.) For one, it felt too easy. It also felt more like Stanley would have been using Alice, and he really wasn’t. He did truly love her (and she did truly love him). But Cat – poor fierce fabulous Cat. Her last name, Scordato, means “forgotten” and “left behind” in Italian. Cat is on her own journey – and she will find her happy ending. But a romance with and marriage to Stanley is not part of it. She is finally on her own path, too, by the end of the book.

Then there is the title, the name of the book – All Falling Things. This is reference to the idea that all of the people within its pages are searching, are on their own journeys. For some it’s falling in love (Kya and Simone). For others it’s falling out of love (Cat). For others yet, it’s both (Alice and Stanley). For most of them, it’s tripping and falling over their own feet (metaphorically, of course) as they try to find their places in life. Even Cat, who seems so sure of everything, is seeking her place.