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dianamc228's review
Racism, Homophobia, and more bigotry
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Racism, Toxic friendship, Police brutality, Xenophobia, Body shaming, and Classism
Moderate: Religious bigotry, Fatphobia, Body horror, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, and Cultural appropriation
melaniereadsbooks's review
Thank you to Netgalley, BookishFirst, and the publisher for an arc of this book.
This is a dark fantasy split between four pov's of people in a previously magical city. The magic has run out, and the new cycle needs to be reborn with a new king and a new maiden to have magic back. Meanwhile, cops and scientists discriminate against "monsters" throughout the city.
I was so excited for this book. I loved Rose Szabo's debut horror, What Big Teeth, and love the cover of this one. Unfortunately, this book fell really short for me.
While the world-building was decent and the plot was interesting, if a little predictable, the main problem for me was the police profiling, racism, and constant misgendering of characters.
One of the MC's is definitely nonbinary, possibly genderfluid. They can change their body to be more masculine or feminine with magic. They are definitely discovering themselves, so I understand the switching pronouns in their pov...but other characters were constantly calling them a boy and other terms even after it was clear they were not.
Another character is a trans-femme. The whole book she is referred to as a boy and a man and he he he and I flinched every time. I know this character didn't come out to some people until near the end...but it was so much, so in your face. Combined with the treatment of the other character, I just couldn't take this part.
Then we get to Jack. Jack is the supposed "Hero" of this story, but she is absolutely horrible. She is one of the major culprits of the misgendering, experiences no character growth, and the worst offense: She turns a mixed-race Black character into the already racist police for a crime she knows he didn't commit so she could save her white sister. This was awful. I know many other reviewers wrote about this same issue.
All in all, this could have been a good story if certain things hadn't been included. Unfortunately, those things were too big of issues for me to give this anymore than 2.5 stars.
This is a dark fantasy split between four pov's of people in a previously magical city. The magic has run out, and the new cycle needs to be reborn with a new king and a new maiden to have magic back. Meanwhile, cops and scientists discriminate against "monsters" throughout the city.
I was so excited for this book. I loved Rose Szabo's debut horror, What Big Teeth, and love the cover of this one. Unfortunately, this book fell really short for me.
While the world-building was decent and the plot was interesting, if a little predictable, the main problem for me was the police profiling, racism, and constant misgendering of characters.
One of the MC's is definitely nonbinary, possibly genderfluid. They can change their body to be more masculine or feminine with magic. They are definitely discovering themselves, so I understand the switching pronouns in their pov...but other characters were constantly calling them a boy and other terms even after it was clear they were not.
Another character is a trans-femme. The whole book she is referred to as a boy and a man and he he he and I flinched every time. I know this character didn't come out to some people until near the end...but it was so much, so in your face. Combined with the treatment of the other character, I just couldn't take this part.
Then we get to Jack. Jack is the supposed "Hero" of this story, but she is absolutely horrible. She is one of the major culprits of the misgendering, experiences no character growth, and the worst offense: She turns a mixed-race Black character into the already racist police for a crime she knows he didn't commit so she could save her white sister. This was awful. I know many other reviewers wrote about this same issue.
All in all, this could have been a good story if certain things hadn't been included. Unfortunately, those things were too big of issues for me to give this anymore than 2.5 stars.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, and Racism
Moderate: Fatphobia
misgenderingforeverinastory's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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
2.5
Thank you to the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
This was a well crafted dark fantasy but a particular scene/action of one of the character's and the lackluster/confusing ending made this one more of a miss for me.
We All Fall Down is a dark urban fantasy which is mainly set in River City which is a magical town that exists somewhere within the US. Kind of how like The Extraordinaries takes place within the real world in a fictional locale. This book follows four queer young people: Jesse, Jack, David and Turing. Besides them we also get interludes from Astrid's POV, she's a middle aged witch.
River City exists in two parts, the Old and the New. Old River City ran on magic but as it's continually disappeared from the world, things have begun to crumble. New River City is all about research and advancing technology, they are ignorant of the way the City used to run and they don't want to go back.
For any Black, biracial and other POC readers, this may be one you want to avoid for a specific reason which I will detail more at the end of this review in a spoiler tag.
This book definitely doesn't read as YA, it is firmly more NA or even adult in my mind. And it's not just because at least two of the characters seem older. No ages are specified but David is a professor and Jack definitely seems like she's in her 20s. This could also just be me. Regardless, I was really curious about the history and mythology surrounding River City. We learn a lot about it, but there still seems to be some important information about how magic works that we don't get by the end. This book is definitely more a character study as well, so while there is action this is more so of a character driven book.
Jesse was one of my favorite characters even though their descriptions did kind of confuse me at first. Jesse was assigned male at birth (AMAB), but can transform magically and swap their gender. They aren't sure what to do with this power and they believe it's a medical condition in the beginning of the book. My confusion was more at how Jesse is described because I wasn't sure if they were a trans girl or somewhere in the nonbinary umbrella. In the beginning, Jesse gets a lot of gender euphoria when someone genders them as female. As the book progresses and they get better at controlling their power, Jesse experiments with presenting more in between the two genders, or switches between them as much as they want. For this reason, I've designated them as genderfluid-questioning, but I could still be wrong. Jesse never labels themselves on page. Either way, they were a literal sweetheart and I'm very much attached to them.
Jack is a character archetype that I love. Strong, badass queer women. She is the epitome of the "Looks like could kill you, would kill you" meme. I liked Jack up to a specific point in the book, but then I was just conflicted because I could not justify nor support something she does around 60% into the book. Jack has the most growing to do out of the characters, which is strange because I definitely thought she was the oldest of the bunch. Jack is lesbian-coded but again no labels are used, however, she never really expresses interest in men. Though there is this weird situation between her and Turing, where she genders Turing as a man like the whole book. I'm unsure if this was just to make sure Jack never said Turing was a girl in their boss's presence, but it was still strange.
I don't have much to add about David or Turing because while they're main characters, I still felt like they didn't get a lot of time to be developed on the page, especially Turing. Her POV doesn't come in until a bit later in the book. I do really enjoy these two, but I feel like I don't know as much about them. From what I do know, I love how intelligent and nerdy David is. He also struggles with his self image and it was something I related to a lot. We are always constantly sweating. I'm really hoping Turing will get more of a POV in the sequel, I want to know everything about her. These two are both going to be incredibly important in the sequel as well and I am ready for it.
This section here will have SPOILERS! They will be detailed to an extent to make people know about this situation which is charged and full of anti-Black sentiment from both a white woman and police officers.
Okay the thing I most HATED about this book is how Jack specifically insinuates that David is guilty of a crime she knows he 100% did not commit. Two police officers have gone missing and are murdered during this book and Jack knows her sister did it. But she refuses to turn in her sister, instead she decides to pin it on David who fought her at her work and seemed to possess magic.
There are two reasons I am mad about this: one is that earlier in the book David is stopped by the police for just hanging around a location, and they believe he is suspicious and up to no good. Even though he is a graduate student and TA at the school in New River City, the police look at his university credentials and are STILL SUSPICIOUS. David leaves this encounter physically unharmed, but he is TERRIFIED by this interaction. David is also a tall and fat man, so he is doubly conscious of how he looks ALWAYS, because everyone assumes he is scary. Which is some BS.
After Jack basically tells the police she's pretty sure David did it, they arrest him and take him for questioning without any sort of evidence or due process. They just take this white lady's word even though she was not present for either murder. She is not an eye witness. David is not physically tortured during his interrogation, but reading these scenes were SO FRAUGHT. He did nothing wrong, yet the police are convinced of his guilt and attempt to get a false confession out of him.
So the second reason I'm pissed about this is that Jack never faces any kind of consequences for doing this. She basically goes on with her life and never questions anything! Granted she does lose her arm near the end of the book, but it's not a direct consequence so I am not really satisfied with it. After Astrid, who is a woman of color, gets David out of jail, she tells Jack to fuck off. Jack is so oblivious to what she did, even when Astrid point blank confronts her about it, Jack shrugs it off.
Look, I know this is a mostly fantastical book, but these events take place in a world that is informed by the current situation in the US. This type of situation has happened and Black men and boys have been killed for it. To see a white woman in fiction do this and basically get away with it, is not what I want to see in 2022.
Also, I'm still so mad about this situation that I'm lowering my rating one star from 3.5 to 2.5. I won't be recommending this either.
Rep: white genderfluid-questioning queer MC, white butch female lesbian MC, Black biracial fat queer male MC, Black biracial sapphic female MC who has tentacles, Asian male side character, BIPOC female witch side character with a broken foot/limp.
CWs: Alcohol consumption, blood, body horror, body shaming, death, fatphobia, injury/injury detail, murder, police brutality (witness intimidation, attempted false confession, confinement to interrogation room), pregnancy & live birth recounted in prologue, racism, violence. Moderate: drug use (character given a sleeping potion w/o consent), gun violence, attempted kidnapping, suicidal thoughts, past mention of death of parent.
This was a well crafted dark fantasy but a particular scene/action of one of the character's and the lackluster/confusing ending made this one more of a miss for me.
We All Fall Down is a dark urban fantasy which is mainly set in River City which is a magical town that exists somewhere within the US. Kind of how like The Extraordinaries takes place within the real world in a fictional locale. This book follows four queer young people: Jesse, Jack, David and Turing. Besides them we also get interludes from Astrid's POV, she's a middle aged witch.
River City exists in two parts, the Old and the New. Old River City ran on magic but as it's continually disappeared from the world, things have begun to crumble. New River City is all about research and advancing technology, they are ignorant of the way the City used to run and they don't want to go back.
For any Black, biracial and other POC readers, this may be one you want to avoid for a specific reason which I will detail more at the end of this review in a spoiler tag.
This book definitely doesn't read as YA, it is firmly more NA or even adult in my mind. And it's not just because at least two of the characters seem older. No ages are specified but David is a professor and Jack definitely seems like she's in her 20s. This could also just be me. Regardless, I was really curious about the history and mythology surrounding River City. We learn a lot about it, but there still seems to be some important information about how magic works that we don't get by the end. This book is definitely more a character study as well, so while there is action this is more so of a character driven book.
Jesse was one of my favorite characters even though their descriptions did kind of confuse me at first. Jesse was assigned male at birth (AMAB), but can transform magically and swap their gender. They aren't sure what to do with this power and they believe it's a medical condition in the beginning of the book. My confusion was more at how Jesse is described because I wasn't sure if they were a trans girl or somewhere in the nonbinary umbrella. In the beginning, Jesse gets a lot of gender euphoria when someone genders them as female. As the book progresses and they get better at controlling their power, Jesse experiments with presenting more in between the two genders, or switches between them as much as they want. For this reason, I've designated them as genderfluid-questioning, but I could still be wrong. Jesse never labels themselves on page. Either way, they were a literal sweetheart and I'm very much attached to them.
Jack is a character archetype that I love. Strong, badass queer women. She is the epitome of the "Looks like could kill you, would kill you" meme. I liked Jack up to a specific point in the book, but then I was just conflicted because I could not justify nor support something she does around 60% into the book. Jack has the most growing to do out of the characters, which is strange because I definitely thought she was the oldest of the bunch. Jack is lesbian-coded but again no labels are used, however, she never really expresses interest in men. Though there is this weird situation between her and Turing, where she genders Turing as a man like the whole book. I'm unsure if this was just to make sure Jack never said Turing was a girl in their boss's presence, but it was still strange.
I don't have much to add about David or Turing because while they're main characters, I still felt like they didn't get a lot of time to be developed on the page, especially Turing. Her POV doesn't come in until a bit later in the book. I do really enjoy these two, but I feel like I don't know as much about them. From what I do know, I love how intelligent and nerdy David is. He also struggles with his self image and it was something I related to a lot. We are always constantly sweating. I'm really hoping Turing will get more of a POV in the sequel, I want to know everything about her. These two are both going to be incredibly important in the sequel as well and I am ready for it.
This section here will have SPOILERS! They will be detailed to an extent to make people know about this situation which is charged and full of anti-Black sentiment from both a white woman and police officers.
Okay the thing I most HATED about this book is how Jack specifically insinuates that David is guilty of a crime she knows he 100% did not commit. Two police officers have gone missing and are murdered during this book and Jack knows her sister did it. But she refuses to turn in her sister, instead she decides to pin it on David who fought her at her work and seemed to possess magic.
There are two reasons I am mad about this: one is that earlier in the book David is stopped by the police for just hanging around a location, and they believe he is suspicious and up to no good. Even though he is a graduate student and TA at the school in New River City, the police look at his university credentials and are STILL SUSPICIOUS. David leaves this encounter physically unharmed, but he is TERRIFIED by this interaction. David is also a tall and fat man, so he is doubly conscious of how he looks ALWAYS, because everyone assumes he is scary. Which is some BS.
After Jack basically tells the police she's pretty sure David did it, they arrest him and take him for questioning without any sort of evidence or due process. They just take this white lady's word even though she was not present for either murder. She is not an eye witness. David is not physically tortured during his interrogation, but reading these scenes were SO FRAUGHT. He did nothing wrong, yet the police are convinced of his guilt and attempt to get a false confession out of him.
So the second reason I'm pissed about this is that Jack never faces any kind of consequences for doing this. She basically goes on with her life and never questions anything! Granted she does lose her arm near the end of the book, but it's not a direct consequence so I am not really satisfied with it. After Astrid, who is a woman of color, gets David out of jail, she tells Jack to fuck off. Jack is so oblivious to what she did, even when Astrid point blank confronts her about it, Jack shrugs it off.
Look, I know this is a mostly fantastical book, but these events take place in a world that is informed by the current situation in the US. This type of situation has happened and Black men and boys have been killed for it. To see a white woman in fiction do this and basically get away with it, is not what I want to see in 2022.
Also, I'm still so mad about this situation that I'm lowering my rating one star from 3.5 to 2.5. I won't be recommending this either.
Rep: white genderfluid-questioning queer MC, white butch female lesbian MC, Black biracial fat queer male MC, Black biracial sapphic female MC who has tentacles, Asian male side character, BIPOC female witch side character with a broken foot/limp.
CWs: Alcohol consumption, blood, body horror, body shaming, death, fatphobia, injury/injury detail, murder, police brutality (witness intimidation, attempted false confession, confinement to interrogation room), pregnancy & live birth recounted in prologue, racism, violence. Moderate: drug use (character given a sleeping potion w/o consent), gun violence, attempted kidnapping, suicidal thoughts, past mention of death of parent.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Racism, and Violence
Moderate: Death of parent, Drug use, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Suicidal thoughts
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