A review by dernhelms_bag
We All Fall Down by Rose Szabo

I dont know if there were heavy edits from the ARC or what but I feel like I couldn't possibly have been reading the same book as some of these reviews... I was looking out for the misgendering and paying close attention to Jack and David's portrayals and how that whole incident plays out and I don't see the things described being in there. I read Jack as like a Judas. Very confused as to how ppl took Jack as supposed to be a good person, but I'm not always terribly bright. 

Im not interested in defending this author but I'm perplexed by very specific content claims that didn't seem to be there  and legitimately wondering if there was a significantly different version out there. All of the major ciswomen characters seemed to be villainous in some way(s) (and even rapey at times) and I thought the terrifying portrayal of how white women's femininity and lying is weaponized against poc and especially the Black community is something that should be talked about more - but it apparently needs to be more explicitly condemned in the text beyond
calling those specific actions "disgusting", having allies turn on her in response, cutting off her limb/maiming someone whose identity is tied up in their physical strength, and having the person she lied to save from jail who is the only person she's ever loved  *die* as a direct result of her evil selfish disgusting choice. I don't think any of that "atones" for the truly unforgivable thing she did but it isn't accurate to say their were no consequences. ....it also only came to light at the end so we don't know what further consequences could await in part 2. </end spoiler> 

Idk that I'll be reading part two as it's pretty rare for me to pick up sequels and I didn't especially enjoy this regardless but Uh...yeah I got a very different vibe here. To me it seemed like the point was literally everything people has said in criticism of it. 😐
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