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green_ghost's review
3.25
Thanks to Netgalley and Holiday House, for approving this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
Being Autistic, chronically ill, and queer, it isn’t too often I see all of these in one book.
Natalie Leif has constructed a wonderfully creative and gory story, letting disabled kids take up space, to be themselves unapologetically.
I got a little bit lost with the plot at some points, but overall I enjoyed the story, and recommend checking it out upon release!
Being Autistic, chronically ill, and queer, it isn’t too often I see all of these in one book.
Natalie Leif has constructed a wonderfully creative and gory story, letting disabled kids take up space, to be themselves unapologetically.
I got a little bit lost with the plot at some points, but overall I enjoyed the story, and recommend checking it out upon release!
ramunepocky's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
“They couldn’t afford to get in trouble when their whole existence caused trouble to begin with; when they spent so much time trying to compensate for themselves.”
this review is not spoiler free
I’d been excited for this book because the concept sounded interesting and the cover was gorgeous, and I wasn’t disappointed; I really enjoyed it!! It was a bit slow to start with, and I didn’t really understand what was going on to begin with, especially where the dead were concerned, because being told that someone was dead but then moving around and muttering to themselves made my brain go “huh????” But it made sense once it was explained and I understood what was actually happening. I thought it was a really interesting take on zombies with their immediate returning and them being identifiable by their eyes, and the slow way in which they’d start to lose their memories and degrade. I thought it was really interesting too that there was an entity in the mountain that they were trying to return to, and the way it would sing to them to come home. It may be because I’ve literally obsessively been playing Rebirth, but it reminded me of the way that the Sephiroth clones are drawn to him without having real control of where they’re going, or what they’re doing. I also think it was interesting that them going to the mountain to degrade repeated the cycle as their oil would leak into the water and corrupt it and turn more people into this world’s zombie equivalent. I loved that there was a happy ending too, and that once the entity was destroyed, all the people that were dead, but still “living” got a chance to live again, though they weren’t entirely untouched by what they’d gone through and their eyes still represented that. I really loved the disability rep too and the running theme of being allowed to take up space and to stop feeling guilty for “being a burden” and being selfish and asking for what YOU want instead of thinking about what is best for everyone else because you’ve already asked for “too much” in being alive.
I really loved Ian; I thought he was a really sweet protagonist, and it absolutely broke me to see him die in such an awful way when he’d only wanted to tell his best friend how he felt. It was really heart-breaking watching him try and process the fact that he’d died, especially after living with the fact he’d die earlier than the average age as a disabled kid, and him not wanting to be mercy-killed because he still wanted to live. I loved the development of his relationship with Monica and how he goes from a one-sided rivalry with her to becoming friends and having a really sweet and supportive relationship. I also really loved his dynamic with Angel and how he went from being unsure of her and her monotone and blunt way of speaking to becoming really fond of her. I loved that the two of them became so protective of Ian and they wanted him to be able to have his own choices, despite being dead and “losing himself.” It was heartbreaking to see him start to lose those pieces of himself and forget things, and be leaking oil more often, but that that didn’t change the way his friends saw and interacted with him, and they just tried to help fill in the gaps. I loved the way they all supported each other, and the way they’d developed a fast and unbreakable friendship in the most dire of times. I also really loved Ian’s dynamic with his best friend, Eric. I would have liked to have seen their dynamic when Ian was still alive a bit more before he dies as he died really early into the book and I felt like I didn’t get a real sense of how they interacted beforehand, and then we didn’t see much of Eric until around half way through the book, but I loved seeing how they interacted after that, even though it physically broke me to see Eric struggle so much.
It was really clear from the moment that Eric first saw Ian again how much him being dead affected him and how traumatising it was for him. He blamed himself for what happened, and it breaks me when they finally properly reunite and they have the conversation about it. It also destroyed me to see Eric try to mercy kill Ian to “make things right” and how he couldn’t actually do it when he had the opportunity because it broke him too much. It was so clear how much Eric loved Ian too, even before we got to see them reunite, the essential shrine that Eric had of all the stuff Ian had given him over the years and their pictures together, it was so clear that Eric loved him back and had just suppressed that like he did the rest of his emotions. It hurt me to see Eric in so much pain after everything that had happened, but considering how much he’d blunted his own emotions and stopped himself expressing them due to his tumultuous relationship with his father, it was nice to see him able to actually express his emotions and his pain, even if a huge chunk of that is likely due to the fact he was so traumatised and felt so guilty about Ian’s death that he was unable to suppress his emotions anymore. It destroyed me to think about the fact that he blamed himself so much and was so hurt by it that he’d literally just curled up in the mall to die, and that’s how Zoey had found him, and damn, I’m glad she did. I’m really glad that Eric and Ian got to reunite properly around the 50% mark and that they actually stayed together because it was killing me not knowing what had actually happened and Ian being torn between angry and blaming Eric, and missing him and wanting to talk to him, and I just really wanted to know what had gone through Eric’s head when he’d briefly seen Ian at the store. I really loved Eric too, bless his heart, he was such a sweet character, even though he hadn’t been allowed to be sweet, and it hurt when he confessed his feelings to Ian thinking he wasn’t lucid enough to actually hear him, and him saying all the bad things he felt about himself. And it was so cute too to see him so embarrassed and always blushing when they both knew how they felt about the other and were more affectionate with each other. It made me laugh so much when Ian tentatively calls him his boyfriend and Eric is blushing like “we’re boyfriends” and Zoey is like “YOU WERENT ALREADY???? YOU WOULDN’T STOP TELLING ME HOW MUCH YOU LOVED HIM” Bless. I’m so happy that they got their happy ending together and were allowed to actually be happy.
My favourite character was absolutely Angel. I loved her so much. I loved the way that she tried to encourage Ian and Monica to take up space and stop apologising for their existences. I resonated a lot with her and her clearly autistic traits, and I think it was sweet the way she showed that she cared about Ian in her own way. I also related to her not caring about the evacuation and choosing to stay behind because she liked and wanted the quiet, and that she hated how loud the world usually was, and how overwhelming it had been.
I would have liked to have seen Ian reunite with his family at the end, especially after the phone call he’d had with his parents and sister, and how she’d asked him if he was still alive and he’d said no, but I did love that the focus was more on found family instead.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book and am excited for the physical release (that cover is so pretty), and will absolutely read anything else the author writes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Ableism and Death of parent
paper_bound's review against another edition
4.0
This book was not quite what I expected but it was a really great read!
Something weird is happening to people who die in a small West Virginian town: their bodies take a while to realize they're dead, leaving friends and family to wander around until they fall apart or are put down for good. We follow Ian, a teenage boy who has spent his life being careful and managing seizures. During an evacuation, an accident leaves Ian dead, alone, and searching for answers about what happened. As he searches for his best friend and secret crush, he teams up with other teen misfits who have also been left behind.
I really enjoyed how the story jumped right in, no explanation or lengthly info drops about this weird infection that causes the dead to stick around. It's a mystery to the characters, and also just an excepted part of life by the point we see them in the story. This helped create an atmosphere of mystery and uncertainty. I wish we could have dug into the characters a bit more, but I enjoyed watching this misfit teens come together to try and survive. There were also a number of times when I teared up, which is a win to me.
The message of the story was a bit on the nose, in that it was stated pretty clearly. This doesn't always work for me, but it's a message I think is important so I was happy to just roll with it.
While I would characterize this novel as horror, it's not incredibly terrifying. There are some moments of body horror and the situation itself if pretty horrific, but I wouldn't say I was scared. More unsettled- which works well for me.
Something weird is happening to people who die in a small West Virginian town: their bodies take a while to realize they're dead, leaving friends and family to wander around until they fall apart or are put down for good. We follow Ian, a teenage boy who has spent his life being careful and managing seizures. During an evacuation, an accident leaves Ian dead, alone, and searching for answers about what happened. As he searches for his best friend and secret crush, he teams up with other teen misfits who have also been left behind.
I really enjoyed how the story jumped right in, no explanation or lengthly info drops about this weird infection that causes the dead to stick around. It's a mystery to the characters, and also just an excepted part of life by the point we see them in the story. This helped create an atmosphere of mystery and uncertainty. I wish we could have dug into the characters a bit more, but I enjoyed watching this misfit teens come together to try and survive. There were also a number of times when I teared up, which is a win to me.
The message of the story was a bit on the nose, in that it was stated pretty clearly. This doesn't always work for me, but it's a message I think is important so I was happy to just roll with it.
While I would characterize this novel as horror, it's not incredibly terrifying. There are some moments of body horror and the situation itself if pretty horrific, but I wouldn't say I was scared. More unsettled- which works well for me.
hjerteknuser's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I loved the world building in this and the mystery behind the parasite in the mountains so much! The characters are also delightful, I loved all of them with my whole heart. Sadly, this book is kind of... debut-y at times - I found the pacing a little off, the characters and their relationships could all have used a little more time to BREATHE and exist. I barely knew Eric, or Ian, for that matter, before everything suddenly happened, and the friendships between Angel, Monica and Ian went from zero to best friends forever in what felt like ten minutes. Still, I feel like the author is gonna write some amazing stuff in their next book.
jbalkovec's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
virgilsinferno's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
A fun but downright spooky at times novel featuring queer, disabled teens left behind in an emergency evacuation. Together this rag-tag group attempt to find out what's really going on in their small town and learn to live selfishly for once. Overall, I absolutely loved this novel.
The disability and queer representation feels real, in fact I found a lot of my own experience as a teen in one of the characters. I loved how characters are described between the tapping of a characters cane, the flat voice of another, or the way seizures are described. The arc our man character goes through to put aside his selfless, martyr ways and take up space for once got me to reflect on my own life. I did feel the end reveal of what's happening to be a bit out of left field but I still enjoyed it as a plot element. I didn't quite understand why oil was so prevalent and it felt at times set up to make the end confrontation easier. But the things I disliked are few and far between compared to how much I enjoyed everything else.
I'd highly recommend this book to any disabled person, queer person, or anyone who just likes fun YA horror. Definitely going to be purchasing a copy on release!
Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
The disability and queer representation feels real, in fact I found a lot of my own experience as a teen in one of the characters. I loved how characters are described between the tapping of a characters cane, the flat voice of another, or the way seizures are described. The arc our man character goes through to put aside his selfless, martyr ways and take up space for once got me to reflect on my own life. I did feel the end reveal of what's happening to be a bit out of left field but I still enjoyed it as a plot element. I didn't quite understand why oil was so prevalent and it felt at times set up to make the end confrontation easier. But the things I disliked are few and far between compared to how much I enjoyed everything else.
I'd highly recommend this book to any disabled person, queer person, or anyone who just likes fun YA horror. Definitely going to be purchasing a copy on release!
Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Death of parent and Child abuse
drakoulis's review
3.0
Take All Of Us has an interesting premise promising big moral conflicts and a horror/dystopian world-building, but sadly doesn't commit to either aspect enough and the story produced is lukewarm.
The origins, causes and resolution of the living dead were vague at the start, disregarded as barely important in the middle and went full paranormal in the end - unfortunately it never made an intriguing mystery.
The characters were not really deep (and very childish in the first part), the message about society leaving disabled people behind was in-your-face and I couldn't find myself to care more than superficially.
Overall, the book was built on a good idea with a mediocre execution.
Thank you NetGalley and Holiday House for the ARC!
The origins, causes and resolution of the living dead were vague at the start, disregarded as barely important in the middle and went full paranormal in the end - unfortunately it never made an intriguing mystery.
The characters were not really deep (and very childish in the first part), the message about society leaving disabled people behind was in-your-face and I couldn't find myself to care more than superficially.
Overall, the book was built on a good idea with a mediocre execution.
Thank you NetGalley and Holiday House for the ARC!
jasperdotpdf's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Thank you to NetGalley and Holiday House for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
I didn‘t know how to feel about being dead or being heartbroken. But I wanted to try figuring it out. I wanted to try doing everything I‘d never let myself do while alive. And if that meant doing it as a messy, rotting, undead corpse…
Fifteen years too late, a couple hours too late, and a town-wide evacuation too late, I wanted it.
Take All of Us is a story about a ragtag group of disabled teens learning to let themselves take up space, set against the backdrop of an Appalachian small town where the dead refuse to stay dead.
There was a tonal dissonance in the book that I struggled with a bit. In the beginning the book reads very young, with the characters being on the lower end of the YA age range. I also noticed that some parts of the dialogue were much closer to actual spoken language, with contractions like "Pro'ly", "Couldn't've" and "Musta" almost disrupting the reading flow. The core moral of the story was also very on the nose, and could have used a bit more subtlety in the way it was communicated, further adding to the juvenile feel of the book. All of this is perfectly fine for a YA book, but led to me thinking that I've probably outgrown the younger end of the genre.
However, the further the book went on the more it grew into something I really enjoyed reading about.
I wanted to scream at them in holy tongues, scream about something, jamming everything I saw into words too impossibly small for it, like a million people speaking together into screaming noise, like the universe crammed into a single dying body, like a seizure lighting up every part of the brain at once, like a cigarette spark in a room full of oil.
Not only does this theme of eldritch horror slowly twist and grow throughout the book, it was also wrapped up really well. The last 10% of the book shines not only with the way it was written, but also with the amazing end it offeres to a book whose plot could have easily been concluded poorly.
Unfortunately, this part of the novel only comes after the long stretch that is the first 75% of the novel that I struggled to enjoy. I sorely missed a common thread; a more central plot to make it feel less like I had to wade through a book that despite its potential hadn't decided what it wanted to be. Its more youthful traits make it virtually impossible to anticipate the darker, more imposing tone the novel takes on that, while really interesting, ends up fitting like an oversized jumper the book has yet to fully grow into.
Damn the blood, damn the afterlife, damn death and all its rotting pieces. I loved him like a dog or a soldier, alert and upright before I‘d even thought about moving. I loved him like instinct.
To summmarize, Take All of Us is a diamond in the rough that could have used a bit more polishing in the form of thematic coherency, but nevertheless has some wonderful moments in its prose, plot and characters. It has a core message that I haven't seen before in a lot of media, and is going to mean a lot to people. It's a debut that shows a lot of promise, and I'm interested to see what Natalie Leif writes next.
the10thingsiloveaboutbooks's review
This book has far too many plot holes and concepts just aren’t explained thoroughly. I couldn’t keep up with the story.
sunnoahh's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0