Robert Reincke's book details his struggle with various addictions and his sexuality.

Although I read the book shortly after it arrived, much of his memoir has remained with me.

I admit it was a difficult read for me, but I did complete the book. I found the work to be disturbing in a way that only an honest portrayal of such a period in ones life can bring.

I would be interested in reading future offerings from this author. ( )

Falling Off the Catwalk has a great premise for a novel: a man struggling with his sexuality while also trying to break into the modeling world, simultaneously trying to overcome drug and alcohol addictions and reconcile everything with Christianity. Credit goes to Robert Reincke for tackling such a variety of themes and trying to wrap them into one cohesive novel, but in the end, he was not able to fully master the challenge.

For the first half of the novel, Reincke does a good bit of whining. The story circles around him not wanting to drink, do drugs, reject his sexuality, and the many friendships he loses while trying to become a model. The plot never advances, instead stalling and becoming nearly unbearable with the constant complaints about wanting more for one's life but never doing anything about it.

However, if the reader perseveres, Reincke's career, along with the plot, starts to move in more positive directions. Conflicts and struggles are never resolved, but there is at least some movement towards addressing the many problems he faces. He also seems to give a few more details and insights into the modeling world, which is the strength of the book.

There are some great ideas to examine in this novel, but the lack of depth in looking at them and overall progress towards coming to any resolutions leaves the book spinning out of control, much like Reincke describes his life, page after page. ( )

(Full disclosure: Since my first reading of this book, I had the opportunity to become Facebook friends with its author, and he knows of both my unflattering opinion of this book and my enthusiasm for the story itself.)

Falling Off the Catwalk is a good story but not a particularly good book. Author Reincke recounts a year and a half in his life during which he quits his financially comfortable but emotionally numbing corporate job in southern California and heads off to Europe to begin a modeling career that has him jetting to Asia and back, trying to gain a foothold in the cutthroat world of top-tier (still-photography, despite the title's reference to runways) modeling.

The promotional material for the book sets it up to deal with the spiritual struggle that comes together at the intersection of ambivalence over sexual orientation, religious fervor in the wake of a mourner's-bench conversion, addiction to alcohol and other drugs, and indecision over how to make one's way in a world in which one has an advanced business degree but no real love for the corporate world. Acutely aware that his fast life and his addiction effectively wiped out his memory of the period, and also acutely aware of the fallout surrounding James Frey's heavily fictionalized A Million Little Pieces, Reincke maintains a nearly slavish devotion to accuracy by quoting heavily from the journals he kept throughout it all.

This meticulousness is, of course, a great asset in general, but its downfall in this case is due to the fact that the journal of a semper-sleep-deprived addict who's trying to stuff his real feelings about sex doesn't make for a terribly snappy read in its unedited form. The narrative's structure is built on the chronological ramblings of some often abstract and sometimes downright tedious primary-source material.

I suspect that the weak structure of the book is probably a function of the fact that the book is published under the author's own imprint, and as a result his editors were not sufficiently ruthless with him. The young man in the story is, overall, a sympathetic character, and one really wants to root for him. But I think that sympathy with the author rather kills this book with kindness.

Ergo, my original judgment that Falling Off the Catwalk is a good story but not a particularly good book. It's a shame, because the arc of the story is quite interesting—how many people do most of us know who've modeled in Milan, Madrid, Paris, and Tokyo?

As one who has dealt with the intersection of faith and sexual orientation in his own life, I was eager to read Reincke's story, hoping to be able to compare notes, but alas, the book didn't live up to the promotional literature: actual religious testimony and specifics of spiritual struggle are at best scant. If the author hadn't told me to expect him to talk about them, I would have missed, by and large, any references to Evangelical teaching, belief, and comportment.

Unfortunately, the author has already expended a great deal of time, money, and other energies on creating this book—I would love to see it redone, but it would be difficult to contemplate doing all that work and spending all that money twice. Fortunately, there are many ways of telling this story, and since the author is also the publisher of his stories, the same story could find itself being told under other circumstances in other words. I, for one, would quite like to see that happen. ( )

There was never going to be much of a chance that I would truly understand this book, since I happen to believe that homosexuality is perfectly alright and that we actually need to find a cure for evangelical Christianity, but there you go. I know for a fact that our hero is a very polite and considerate chap, judging from the handwritten note enclosed in the book, and it's a quality that can be found in his narrative. This is a memoir covering some very confused yet exhilarating years of Robert's life and - while the writing is poor, there is too much emphasis placed on reproducing pointless journal entries, and the whole text is screaming for an editor – I found it strangely intriguing. Yes, there are clichés and unending stories of drug and alcohol usage, masturbation and other yawn-inducing activities, but there are also some very enlightening passages on the fashion industry in places like Paris, Milan, Tokyo and New York, all of which was new to me. I appreciate the insight I gained into this world of vain insecurity, and I found Reincke's wide-eyed innocence and inner turmoil rather refreshing. I can even forgive him his nasty comments about Hamburg! The photos are definitely a bonus :-) ( )

This is a narrative of a specific individual's life during a certain period of time in other words a memoir. it is written in the form of journal entries tied together with connecting text which to me lends it an immediacy and realism not see often in such works.

There is an unevenness in the journal entries, but who writes journal entries with the idea that they will be published? In my experience such things are written on the fly, somewhat hurriedly and usually only for personal use.

At the beginning of the book the author has already suffered a major crisis already in the recent past which led him review what for him was becoming an unsatisfactory life in Southern California. He decided, based on some recent amateur modeling to leave a steady job in a large corporation, his condo, and Jeep for a life in the world of Modeling. Life indeed it is as he describes it for it is one of those jobs which affects pretty your whole lifestyle like it or not!

He starts the job on the learn as you go plan as he was told at one agency.. First Milan, then Paris, and then New York! He goes thought various crises based on problems he brought with him from his life before, drug addiction, sexuality, low self esteem, that had until then remained unresolved ready affect him in his new life. It chronicles his dealing with it as best he can given his constantly changing circumstances.

I can recommend this book as one man's journey through a very transforming period of his life. It deliveries much of the rawness of emotion current in such episodes. To overall a good book. A personal thank you to Mr. Reincke for the note. ( )