Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the audio ARC of this!

This was really weird in all the best ways. Queer fairytale vibes, with alternating POVs, I can’t wait to get to the next one. Perfect for fans of The Hazel Wood, if you just wished it was a little bit weirder

A Mystical Journey of Self-Discovery and gender-Identity

I would like to start by saying that I chose the audiobook for this read. And it made ALL the difference!

The summary for 'We All Fall Down' is short, sweet, and intentionally ambiguous. Description and cover in mind, I was expecting a magical feel-good YA reminiscent of Harry Potter x Percy Jackson with queer overtones.

What I got could not have been farther from my expectations.

The story starts with a prologue traditional of YA Fantasy.
Significant events unfolded and because they did (in the way that they did) we are looking at something akin to a prophecy. When the forementioned individuals are brought together, magic will be returned to the land or else it will die away completely.

This is the LAST time the story fits into the fantasy molds you might be expecting. (And that's saying something considering the fact that it is claiming on the dustjacket to put its best non-binary foot forward.)

Chapter 1 takes a jarring sprint into the modern world. Here we meet Jesse, our teenaged protagonist who is struggling to find their place in the world while unraveling the mystery of their missing friend. From there we meet our other key players:

Jack, the spunky queer tomboy enforcer with a man's name.
David, the misunderstood black professor.
Turning, the eight-legged trans 'monster'.

The narrative is compelling from the very beginning. Setting up the kind of simmering suspense that leaves you wondering when the 'other' shoe will drop. However, trying to muddle through the changing pronouns can easily prove overwhelming while trying to navigate the author's fantastical world building. For this reason, the narration was instrumental in allowing me to sit back and take events as they happened rather than getting caught up in the details of who was speaking or what was being said.

Confusing pronouns are anything but an editorial oversight. They are a call to normalize genderfluidity. In fact, self-identity seems to be the theme at large. The thing that remains consistent between the changing characters and narratives is that they all struggle with inherent doubts about who they are. This is only compounded by the fact that River City's 'underbelly' belongs primarily to witches and anthropomorphic beings. Which, again, is completely commonplace.

Our settings take place on the 'mainland' (think of it as the non-magical 'muggle' world of Harry Potter) and River City.

If anything, the reader is 'thrown into the deep end' of Szabo's world and challenged not to overthink anything other than the mystery at hand. The mystery of who is committing atrocious murders in River City and why.

By time you really start to feel 'settled' into the world, at least a quarter of the story has already progressed which may be challenging for many YA readers. Typically, it would be enough for me to DNF, but because I was listening to the audio, I was a captive audience. I was able to remove myself from the semantics and connect with the characters in a way that I know I would not have been able to otherwise. Before long, I found myself hooked and desperate to know what happened next.

I do not know, however, if the content of the story really classifies it as a YA. The cover art is really deceptive in that way. Though description is kept to a minimum or glossed over almost entirely, topics like sex work, murder, and police brutality are also normalized throughout.

Romance, however, is a prevalent undercurrent without being centerstage. Which I appreciated. Attraction was 'ever present' in the way you might expect a teenaged brain to be hardwired. Always posing the questions of 'if' while leaving the possibilities open-ended.

All in all, We Fall Down is not the book I was expecting. It was so much more.

I will update my review once I get through the last few chapters (which I was hoping to have finished by release day- oops) but for now I feel strangely satisfied by the identity-positivity and friendship at the center of this tale.

(At the end of the day I guess it would feel more like Once Upon a Time meets Mask of Shadows and Into the Crooked Place.)

TO SUM UP:

We All Fall Down has self-identity and acceptance at the core of a modern magical mystery reminiscent of several modern-day fairy-tale retellings. The narrative alternates between four key protagonists who all provide different insights into the world and magic system at large which is very well developed.

The story may feel bogged down at times by erroneous details and confusing pronouns, But that is exactly the reason why I would recommend choosing the audiobook over the hard copy and turning off any preconceived notions you may have as a well-seasoned reader. (Easier said than done.)

With the exception of a character with a lisp in the prologue, the narrator does a MARVELOUS job of keeping the voices distinct and the story flowing. She may be a bit soft-spoken or slower-paced (think AMSR) in her reading, but that only allowed me to listen at 1.5x without missing anything. My only critique would be the fact that every 'he/she/they said' is spoken aloud ad nauseum, but I do think that was an intentional choice to normalize genderfluidity and quickly became easy to tune out.

Keep an open mind and I think this one will really surprise you.

[Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.]

Rep: white butch lesbian MC, Black biracial sapphic MC with tentacles, white genderfluid-questioning queer MC, Black biracial fat achillean MC, Asian SC, Black female witch SC with a limp.

Right from the beginning, and throughout the whole book, we jump around through povs a lot. I often forgot whose pov I was following and it was hard to keep track of everyone. I would confuse the characters sometimes. I also didn’t really know where the plot was going or what they were supposed to be doing.

Jessie’s character is really cool, how they would change genders throughout the book. I wasn’t really sure if they were on the trans/non binary spectrum or not though, since it’s mostly due to magic and they can’t control it at the beginning. Later on, they start to control it and switch willingly between male and female presenting, and sometimes refer to themself at they/them. No label is mentioned, but I think the most accurate label would be genderfluid, or at least questioning.

Turing intrigued me the most. Seeing as she has tentacles, I wanted to know all about her. I did like her, but I also have a lot of questions that I don’t think they explained. I’m not sure if I just missed it, but I don’t know how she went around without people seeing her tentacles?? And does she even have legs? I have no idea lol I was kinda confused when it was her pov, because it used she/her pronouns, but when it was the other character’s pov, they used he/him? Did she just want people to see her as a guy? And if so why?

David was alright but we didn’t get a lot of chapters. He mostly had povs at the beginning and middle, and less towards the end. David had to deal with two cops profiling him earlier on in the book who gave him a real hard time. He is a tall, fat, queer Black man, and most people are scared of him. He deserves better. The author did him dirty.

Jack is ok. Didn’t care that much about her. Especially when she does that very problematic thing that I’m about to get into.


Spoilers:

Ok so, now for the problematic part. I’m going to start by saying I'm white, but these are some things I noticed. Jack tells the cops David is the one who killed the two cops, knowing full well it was her sister. Really? Framing a queer Black man for a crime???? And then 100% believing he will be fine because he seems like a rich student?? And not seeing why this is wrong?? She only regrets it at the end because now it affects Turing. Even when confronted by Astrid about it, Jack still doesn’t see why her, a white woman, blaming a Black man for murder was wrong. The author, who isn’t a POC, really messed up big time.

End of spoilers.


Overall, the blurb was interesting and I was intrigued by the magic and creatures in this world, but it needed more world building. We don’t really know how the magic works. And I don’t remember it saying how or why people like Turing are born. And then most importantly, there’s the big problematic racism part. It’s really quite unfortunate. This book had a lot of potential.

The cover is amazing and is mostly what made me want to read it. It’s so pretty.

The narrator did a decent job. The best was when she changed her voice a bit each time we were in Jesse’s pov and they changed genders. For every other character it was harder to know whose pov we were in.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an audio ARC of this book.

Unfortunately, this fell a little flat for me. It felt like very much a setup book and it took forever for Jessie and David to finally meet. I never really became invested in the characters either. It was certainly a unique story though and I wanted to know more about the magic system, but just don't want to read another book in order to find out.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for sending me an early copy of this audiobook! All opinions are my own!

I'm not sure where to start with this book! I greatly enjoyed how diverse it was and how it focused on telling the stories of the groups it represented and not just having the diversity for diversity's sake. It really gave such depth to the story and gave each of the characters such a relatability even despite all the fantasy elements.

I liked the uniqueness of the world, but I wished that there had been more world-building. I'm still confused about the actual prophecy or whatever the characters are supposed to be fulfilling. It didn't seem super clear to me exactly what was going on or how they were supposed to be playing into this world.

The best part of this book was the depth of it and the way that it talks so much about self-love, acceptance, and how the world views those who are labeled as different. This part of the book really gave it something extra that a lot of books, especially fantasy, don't always have.

If you're a fantasy fan, definitely check this book out for pride month!

I'm sorry. I was really excited to read this book, but I just couldn't understand anything. The story was all over the place, jumping around from character to character with no indication of how the stories fit together. This is my first Szabo book. I'm not sure if this is Szabo's particular style or what? If it is, then Szabo is not the author for me. I felt like I was too busy trying to figure out what the heck was going on in this story that I couldn't invest in any of the characters, and because I didn't care about any of the characters, I just couldn't get into this book. I don't think I've ever been so confused about a book in my life. I'm not really sure who I could recommend this to, but this is definitely not the book for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ALC. Jade Wheeler was a fine narrator, but unfortunately couldn't save the story for me.

I made it about 20% into this audiobook before I just couldn't continue. The characters are none compelling, the world isn't compelling, and the perspectives feel convoluted and not really differing in voice from narration to narration. I decided to look up existing reviews after deciding to DNF, and those reviews have only compelled me even more to DNF due to the anti-black content in the story.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Macmillan Young Listeners in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 30% so I won't give a rating. This book has a looong list of trigger warnings and I would suggest checking out reviews from Black and trans reviewers as they are far more qualified than I am to speak on the problematic aspects of this novel. But how gender and race is handled is concerning.

I'm really not here for a book that uses police brutality against a Black man as a plot device written by someone not within that community (and that also doesn't really explore it). I enjoyed Szabo's slightly confusing writing style in WHAT BIG TEETH but here at this far in... I have no idea what's going on because the plot is so convoluted and at 30% in, I'm not invested in what happens to any of the main characters. This novel jumps points of view a lot giving a voice to too many characters from the start which further muddles everything. The synopsis was interesting and I was really looking forward to reading WE ALL FALL DOWN. But this was a flop for me.

The cover art is to die for though. It's truly stunning. Jade Wheeler does an ok job with the audiobook narration but there isn't enough of a distinction between each of the characters to make it easy to know which character is driving which chapter.

I know this is a bit controversial but I really enjoyed this book. This book was really interesting. I love the magic system in this book and the way it was hidden as science. This book was also hella queer which I also loved.
This book definitely has some problematic bits and I would definitely check out trigger warnings before diving into this. I will also say this book doesn't read as ya to me but as regular fantasy so also be aware of that.
I think if you are look for a queer fantasy with a really unique magic system you should check this out. Just be aware of the triggers in this book first.

Firstly, this book seems to me to be Adult, or at least NA, I would not classify this book as YA. This is both because it didn’t seem like the main characters were teenagers (one is a college professor and most of the others seemed like adults, they don’t explicitly say) and because there are some very hard themes in this book.

I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator took a little getting used to, but overall did the best they could with the material, and I ended up really enjoying how they handled the material and voices. I would absolutely listen to the narrator again!

The gender transforming Jesse went through was a very interesting mechanic and I would like to see that explored more, also the use of the term ‘magical girl’ which I’m familiar with from extensive anime consumption, was used in an interesting and new way in this book that I enjoyed. There are so many aspects of this book that I really enjoyed!

Overall though, the story is confusing and convoluted. I was left very badly wanting the story that the blurb promised. I am still interested in that story and would love to read it, but I do not feel like I did. I didn’t really like any of the characters except for Jesse (who still felt like an acquaintance, and I didn’t feel like I really knew them as well as I wanted to.

That being said, overall, this book is a miss for me. And I was so excited about this book. It is well written, in a technical way, the words are put together well, the sentences are good. The story sounds good and in some parts is interesting but as a whole, it failed.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy for free, I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The book was unable to be reviewed on Amazon, or I would have left a review there as well.

Unfortunately, after receiving access to this audiobook, it was brought to my attention that this book is very problematic and has racist content in it, so I am uncomfortable reading it and will not be doing so.