Reviews

And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott

keirahelena_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gore, and Child death

meagwhalen's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

Cutting in the best way. Parts were difficult to get through in the same way the Bell Jar can be—eviscerating. But the ending!!! Incredible. 

annamack2023's review against another edition

5.0

Finally broke my 2-3 star streak. This book is such a beautifully written exploration of mental health, with such well-written relationships and maybe the only time I’ve liked time travel theory in a book.

Fair warning: this book did make me cry on a plane and it was in fact embarrassing. Please read the last fifty pages in the privacy of your own home if you have a mother or grandmother you love dearly.

abbyandthejets's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense 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

4.0

This a really intense read, but is incredibly clever and moving too. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Alcohol, and Genocide

sarahwiltshire's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense 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

4.5

jmajka's review against another edition

5.0

This was an insanely gripping novel that really held me from start until the end. At some point in the middle I was wondering how the author was going to possibly end it and then wow. I just loved the last 3/4 of the book. This book feel into a similar category in my mind as Ruth Ozeki and Mona Awad books. Similar to Demon Copperhead too! 

Also Steve: it’s on sight.

jboon's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

melissareads70's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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

4.0

helen_t_reads's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

4.0

On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be in life: she’s just given birth to a beautiful baby girl; her ever-charming husband – an academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture – is nothing but supportive; and they’ve moved into a home in a wealthy neighbourhood. But strange things have started happening. Alice finds herself hearing voices she can’t explain and speaking with things that should not be talking back to her, all while her neighbours’ passive aggression begins to morph into something far more threatening…

The narrative of this novel is infused with native American culture and myth, as well as mystery and surrealism. As the story unfolds the narrative becomes increasingly hallucinatory, and, at one point is both time and mind bending, but if you stick with it you are rewarded by a very clever and satisfying conclusion where the future reaches back to rescue the past.

Within the novel, the author uses the 'story within a story' technique. Alice is reworking a Haudenosaunee creation story, and sections of her work in progress are interspersed between the chapters. As her version of the Creation story is revealed to us we see that whilst she respects the culture, reverence and power of Mohawk storytelling the tone she has adopted eschews the traditional for something younger, hip, more flippant and vernacular.

This interweaving of the Sky Woman myth, allows both Alice and the reader to reflect on its relevance to Alice's own life, and also mirror the similarities between it and her situation, as she perceives it.

The characters are well created, especially Alice, and her situation as a new mother resonates. She has a memorable voice and tone, which is both darkly funny, and raw.

Alicia Elliott shows equally skill on her creation of the ambiguous and sometimes unpleasant neighbours,  her husband Steve's colleagues, and Steve too sometimes, and we share Alice's mistrust of them.

The novel explores a number of very powerful and at times disturbing themes: intergenerational trauma; bereavement and grief; identity; feeling cut off from one's culture and adjusting to married life in a new city after life on the reservation; experiencing daily microaggressions, overt and subtle racism, constant unfairnesses, injustice and persecution that come with that; cultural appropriation by the liberal educated middle-class and by academics; the challenges of new motherhood, and, the nightmarish experience of a post-partum psychosis induced mental breakdown.

This is an intense, thought-provoking, and powerful novel offering insight to Mohawk culture and persecution (past and present), as well as post-natal mental health, all leavened with flashes of dry humour and social commentary. A book which I'm sure will live on in my head for quite some time to come.

rootsinmydreamland13's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0