DNF 15%

I got the ick from how the black characters were described. It fed into harmful stereotypes I am against & feel VERY uncomfortable with.

This was taken down before I could download it probably because of all the backlash about racism. I was still going to read it to make up my own mind about it but I won’t be supporting the author after seeing other reviews and being archived I can’t read the review copy.

This one ended up having a lot of issues and controversy surrounding it. The writing was good but the book overall is not worth it.

I unfortunately can't recommend this book due to the controversial racial plotline that is glaringly obvious when you read the book, and that many others have commented on.

This was my Goodreads review: I barely started the book and the author uses the f-word (derogatory term, not the 4-letter one). Came here to check the reviews and decided I'd rather bail.

However, I may give the book a second chance since a trusted reader told me it was one of her favorite books this year.

This is a difficult book to succeed as an audiobook because of the diverse cast of characters. They become hard to distinguish, particularly when there is a lot of fluidity with gender.

I’m….It’s the racism and homophobia for me. DNF. I would give it 0 if I could, but instead I give you a 1.

Couldn't bring myself to read it after everything I've heard. I just don't feel comfortable reading the book.

Due to the racially charged and insensitive content - I decline to review or promote this book in any way.

We All Fall Down was a book that I walked into with an open mind however pretty early into the book I felt like the author lacked perspective or a good view of the story she was attempting to tell. I had a hard time dealing with the hero subjecting a gay Black man to police brutality. From there I also struggled with the Black man's completely justified anger at the violence done to him and turn it into an "anger is bad and forgiveness will heal the world" lesson. Hallmarking oppressors and oppressed relationships just did not sit well with me.

We All Fall Down is a dark urban fantasy. Initially, the cover looked fantastic and I had good hopes for this book. After reading the beginning, I was so certain this would turn out to be a great book.

However, after a few chapters, I found myself being uninterested in the story. I pushed through reading it until the end but had a hard time feeling a connection or some sort of interest in the cast of main characters,

The premise of this story had so much potential and had a strong start but unfortunately fell flat when it came to the development of good characters and engaging story.

I unfortunately DNF’d this book at 30%. While the narrators did an amazing job, I was thoroughly confused from the start as to what was going on. At 2 hours in, I had to start over from the beginning.

When one of the characters was accosted by the police and then the author described the Black characters hair as picking up different things and catching trash in it, I decided to read reviews.

This book currently has a 2.65 on GoodReads and from what I can tell, I’m glad I decided to stop reading. In today’s climate, a white author should not be poorly writing about a black character being brutally assaulted by the police. It’s in poor taste.

I definitely feel like sensitivity readers should have been asked to read this first.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Young Listeners, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Rose Szabo, and Jade Wheeler (audio narrator) for the opportunity to read and listen to the audiobook of We All Fall Down in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book in a duology.

River City is a fictional city within the United States. Magic was once plentiful, but is fading from the land. Monsters dwell among the people. The city, once ruled by a king, now follows the order of the university, where science takes the high seat.

Many people mention certain scenes that are obscenely racist. While that may be true, it's also a story, and the author chose to make certain events occur for the sake of the story. It may not have been intentional that it pits Black people against authority, and I find this book isn't as awful as everyone claims. We just live in a hyper-critical world. That being said, this book isn't really that spectacular either.

I enjoyed three aspects of this book. The science was rather intriguing at times. The murder mystery with the "river monster" had potential (though the culprit is easily found out by the reader and part of this circumstance and what happens with it is one of the elements that has people disliking the book; it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good...).

I enjoyed the character Jesse (forgive me if I spelled their name wrong, as I listened to the audiobook). It took me a few chapters to realize not only did they alternate between he/she pronouns, but can actually physically change form based on their current gender. I appreciated this and also found Jesse to be the most dynamic of the characters. The others didn't really stand out much to me. (I did like David, a professor at the university, as well).

I do want to highlight the narrator of the audiobook, Jade Wheeler. I thought they did an excellent reading of the book.

Overall, not bad, but not good. I didn't dislike the novel, though there is a very slim audience I might possibly recommend this one too.

I adored this book. It was deep on multiple levels. I will say a couple of the gender switches did through me off here and there only because I think a couple mixed, but overall great story, and characters.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this audio book.

This was very creative, intriguing and somewhat confusing. There is almost too much fluff in some areas and not enough in others. I liked the worldbuilding that was there, with the Maidens/Kings/Monsters etc and was enjoying getting to know the characters, but it didn't feel like it came together enough at the end. I will be interested to see what happens next. I really liked the narrator on this one.

This the best cover art of 2022 and my least favorite book of the year. I am very sad because I loved Szabo's debut, What Big Teeth, but I really cannot put up with the book's constant misgendering, character devices that essentially argue body=gender, and the perpetuation of racial prejudices/systemic oppressions by and of characters within this book. As a reader in 2022, I think it is fair to expect better from a book that was touted as a queer/inclusive fantasy. This could have been the next Six of Crows but I am deeply disappointed with the execution.

This book was really great. It was definitely a character building and character driven book. I enjoyed the writing style and the creativity with each individual characters it made me think of people in my own life, and myself, who have gone through similar experiences with discovering their truest self. I am definitely going to be reading the next book and think this is an incredible book to introduce to teens to help them see themselves or see others for who they truly are and how to accept their differences and uniqueness.
Thank you to the author and publisher for a copy of this ARC and audiobook!

4 stars: enjoyed it, but didn't love it.

We All Fall Down begins a new duology following four different Queer teens trying to survive in a world that has lost it's magic. There are Monsters, Heroes, Kings, and Madiens; all trying to find their way and protect those they love. What are these individuals willing to sacrifice in the name of survival and even revolution?

I try to give really detailed summaries in order to pose questions that may spur a reader to pick up a novel, however with this story it would be giving too much away. It would rob you of getting to know these individuals for yourself like I did and that was half the fun of this story. There were uncomfortable moments, some including police brutality with a minority, but I feel like the author included it as part of a lesson of consequences for another character as well as character growth(or even villain beginnings) for another. I do not believe the author put it in unnecessarily or to be harmful as I have seen some other reviews state. If something makes you uncomfortable ESPECIALLY in literature then it's doing its job. Art imitates life, even if it's a truth we don't like to face.

Overall, 4 stars and an interest in book two(not a ravenous need, but a curiosity). Recommend for readers 14+ as there is some subject matter that could be triggering for some readers.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an AudioARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC of We All Fall Down months ago and watched with growing trepidation as the average rating on Goodreads plummeted as time went on. So I was wary when I finally got around to reading it, but not to the point that I was going to let it color my own reading experience of what from the synopsis reads as a fresh take on urban fantasy. Unfortunately, what could have been fresh was barely explored, as its instead fixates on a series of murders of police officers in a poorly constructed landscape of an urban fantasy. Which… leads to an entirely unnecessary bag of worms, and the main point of criticism for this book.

But before we get into the questionable thematic elements of the message here, the structure of We All Fall Down has enough flaws on its own. I’m not sure if I found the story to be uninteresting because the narrative was so jumbled I couldn’t follow closely enough to keep anything straight, or if just nothing meaningful happened. The characters themselves attach themselves to each other so quickly and with a bizarre intensity I had trouble believing any of the relationships - romantic or otherwise. It all feels a bit like a fever dream, and even the seemingly good-intentioned effort at inclusivity doesn’t actually ever depict a non-binary character in as many words. The nature of the rapidly switching narratives and frankly baffling decisions each character makes doesn’t help establishing a basis for the most unsympathetic characters I’ve ever seen plopped into the landscape of a vague urban fantasy world.

All that aside, the biggest issue most readers are fixating on - and justifiably so - is the actions of the character Jack, a white woman who purposefully frames an innocent man of color in order to protect her sister from the scrutiny of the police. A sister who, mind you, is an actual serial murderer. These are the kind of actions you ascribe to a villain in a story, not a POV character that gets a love interest, and is depicted as a mentor figure, and is unquestionably supposed to be a protagonist. It’s baffling really, that anyone would think to include this kind of plot point and not expect the appropriate amount of backlash.

I have a hard time reading anything in We All Fall Down as inherently malicious, but it does read as tone-deaf at times. And with the actual interesting urban fantasy elements most unexplored in favor of fixating on a cast of characters that range from uninteresting to actively hateable, I just don’t see this book as one that’s going to resonate with a lot of readers.

Thank you to the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an ARC via NetGalley for an honest review.

2.5 Stars

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.

Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, and Racism, misgendering
Moderate: Fatphobia