Falling by anne provoost

Lucas is a bored, gullible and foolish boy who unscrupulously allows himself to become emtowiled in events through the story. Strangely in the two major events, which dominate the story, it is Benoit, not Lucas or Alex, who is the more scheming character. The actual motives to cut the one tree left in the Cercle and to devise the Molotov cocktails that damaged the derelict building meant to house the Jews comes from Benoit! Equally noteworthy, and contrary to what readers might think of Alex being a troublemaker, Alex actually does very little scheming and stupidly follows Benoit.

Benoit is the smooth-talking intelligent extremist right from the start. The very first time readers see him at the gun shop and one of the first things he does is to talk the shopkeeper into selling Lucas the gun. This shows straight away that he is a smooth-talking person.

Right at the beginning Benoit tells Lucas, ‘We want to act the way he acted, for the good of our country.’ (p74) Benoit p...