When the World Tips Over

When the World Tips Over is the third novel by Jandy Nelson, whose previous novels for young adults, The Sky is Everywhere (2010) and the New York Times bestseller I’ll Give You the Sun (2014), have been recognized with numerous awards and distinctions and have appeared on several best-of lists. When the World Tips Over is a family saga with elements of fable and magical realism. The novel explores themes of The Effects of Parental Abandonment, Romantic Love as Destiny, and Healing Intergenerational Trauma.

The action of the novel begins when a mysterious girl with rainbow-colored hair enters the lives of the three Fall siblings, who live on a vineyard in Paradise Springs, California, where they were abandoned by their father, Theo Fall, 12 years earlier. When Wynton is injured in an accident, Cassidy—the girl with the rainbow hair—tells a set of stories that reach back to the beginnings of the Fall family and eventually reveal Cassidy’s own place within it. While the siblings deal with their own wounds, passions, and revelations, the loves and betrayals of the earlier generations unfold around them, leading them all to a resolution that offers healing, reconciliation, and hope.

This guide refers to the Dial Books hardcover first edition, published in 2024.

Content Warning: This guide and the source text include depictions of mental illness, substance use and addiction, sexual assault, death, violence and child abuse.

Plot Summary

In the town of Paradise Springs, in northern California’s wine country, 12-year-old Dizzy Fall is saved from a car accident by a girl with rainbow-colored hair. The next morning at breakfast, as she is trying to describe the girl to her mother, her two brothers, Wynton and Miles, get in a fight when Miles breaks Wynton’s violin bow right before an important performance.

Miles, whom his family calls Perfect Miles, is struggling. He recently had his first kiss with a boy and then woke up one morning in a dumpster after a night of partying with Wynton. Like the other Fall siblings, Miles is still devasted by the abrupt departure of their father, Theo Fall, 12 years ago. When Miles runs into the girl with the rainbow-colored hair, they spend the day swimming at a waterfall, and Miles feels a lively, even spiritual connection with her.

Wynton dazzles the crowd with his violin performance but feels unsettled after taking pain pills he stole from Miles. On the drive home, he stops to play in the middle of the road. When the girl with the rainbow hair approaches him, he recognizes that they met in a meadow outside of town six years ago, when Wynton was 13. They dance in the road, but then Wynton is hit by a car and taken to the emergency room.

The accident leaves Wynton in coma. Cassidy, who fell in love with Wynton that day in the meadow, sneaks into his room to share her life story in hopes of waking him up. Cassidy was raised by a free-spirited single mother, Marigold, who said that Cassidy’s father, a surfer, died when she was young. Marigold wants to have a grand adventure like earlier immigrants to California. She and her mother live in an RV and travel the state looking for a place her mother has seen in visions, which she calls simply The Town. At one of their campsites, Marigold meets and falls in love with a man named Dave, who asks her to marry him. When Dave abruptly leaves the next day, Marigold and Cassidy follow him to a place that Marigold recognizes as The Town. When they get there, they discover that Dave is already married. Desolate that she won’t have a father after all, Cassidy runs away to a nearby meadow, where Wynton finds her.

Wynton, drifting in his coma, can hear Cassidy but can’t communicate with her. Dizzy and Miles and their mother, Bernadette, along with their father’s brother, Clive, try various methods to wake Wynton. A new chef at Bernadette’s restaurant, Felix, tries making gumbo, hoping the smell will wake him. Dizzy and Miles are both taken with Felix’s colorful attire and exuberant personality. Felix recently rode to Paradise Falls with a rainbow-haired girl who said she was researching the history of the Fall family. Miles and Felix decide to find Cassidy in hopes that she can wake Wynton. As they spend time together, Miles feels a powerful attraction to Felix. They learn that Dizzy has stowed along in their truck. When they reach Cassidy’s home, Miles and Dizzy are stunned when their father, Theo Fall, opens the door.

Interwoven chapters share the history of the Fall family, describing how Alonso de Falla fell in love with a young man named Sebastian. Alonso escaped his venomous half-brother, Hector, by traveling to California with a friend, Maria, and six grapevines. He and Maria established a vineyard in a town they called Paradise and eventually had a son, Bazzy. When Sebastian joined them, he and Alonso were joyfully reunited, and all three lived together until Hector appeared. Hector’s son, Victor, eventually killed Bazzy and took over the vineyard, raising both his son, Clive, and Bazzy’s son, Theo, as brothers.

Dizzy and Miles ask Theo to return to Paradise Springs to try to wake Wynton with his trumpet. Cassidy’s stories to Wynton reveal how she discovered that Theo Fall was her father after her mother left her in his care. After leaving Bernadette and the children, Theo took the name Dexter Brown and established a different vineyard. When Cassidy discovered her father’s real identity, she traveled to Paradise Springs to meet Miles and Dizzy and to see Wynton again.

Unsent letters written by Bernadette reveal her history, a counterpoint to Cassidy’s stories. When Bernadette’s family moved to Paradise Springs, they took over Sebastian’s old bakery. Bernadette fell in love with Theo but was also attracted to Clive. She slept with Clive even while she madly loved Theo. Wynton saw them together once and told Theo, which caused him to leave the family because he thought Bernadette and Clive were in love. Wynton realized he must be Clive’s son, which made him cruel to Miles, behavior he now regrets. As Theo travels back to Paradise Springs, he learns from Dizzy that Bernadette and Clive aren’t together and that Miles and Dizzy must be Theo’s children. As everyone congregates in Wynton’s hotel room, Theo plays his trumpet, but it is for Cassidy that Wynton finally wakes. He reflects that his world has tipped over, but it is joy spilling out.