Review 9/10✨ What a magical adventure this story was! I requested an arc of this as soon as I saw a handful of amazing reviews for it. I loved I’ll Give You the Sun and was so happy this one had the same character driven story with uniquely enchanted vibes.

One of my favorite things about this book was the writing. The authors stories aren’t really magical realism, but also they kind of are… it’s hard to describe. The author has a way of making the history of one family so sound thrilling and mysterious. You devour the pages trying to piece together the past and line it up with current story events. A lot of the themes are sad but the magic woven through it all cushions the heaviness by wrapping you in hope.

I loved every single character and would give them all a hug if I could. Dizzy was my favorite I think, but I also loved Miles.

Overall it was such an amazing read. It’s long at over 500pgs but I felt like it was over in the blink of an eye. This comes out September 24th and I highly recommend picking my it up! If you’re itching for it but haven’t read I’ll Give You the Sun definitely check that one while you wait!

Thanks to netgalley and Dial Books for a copy of this book! I already preordered a physical copy for my shelves😍

Genre: Young Adult, Magical Realism
Subgenre: LGBTQ Fiction

Brief Summary: Dizzy, Wynton and Miles are three siblings who are direct descendants of the well known "Fall Family", this includes Theo Fall, their father who abandoned them when they were very young. When Dizzy meets a beautiful angel who saves her life, Miles meets the same angel who shows him what love can truly look like, and Wynton falls in love with the same angel who also saves his life...the legend of The Fall Family Curse begins to be uncovered. leading to self discovery for each of it's members.

Thoughts:
What a delightful book that I wish I had read when I was much younger. The entire time I read this book I could only think about how many people will want to ban this book based on it's themes of belonging, acceptance, and human's search for healing in self destructive ways. And, I can't wait for this book to make it's entrance into the world because of those same themes.

This book has it all - a little romance, a lot of family history, and so much whimsy and magic that you'll not be able to put it down. I loved the nods to family curses and the classic family novels like East of Eden and appreciated the more modern twist. I think this will be a knock out for youth who are looking for a book that enthralls them while also shows them some pieces of themselves...the representation is wonderful and a reader will see a bit of themselves in every character.

Wow. This book was a slow burn but once I met the characters, I was invested. Ultimately, a book about love of all kinds, the book follows the Fall family - whose father disappeared one day and never returned. The character development is done through the eyes of various characters in the present and in the past. The author does a great job connecting all the stories in the family so that it doesn't feel disjointed when the story switches between characters. It all starts with the rainbow haired girl that Dizzy calls an "angel" but all the Fall siblings feel a connection to her.
Stick with this in the beginning when it's a bit slow, because the payoff for the story and the ending are worth it.

It feels so good to read Jandy Nelson’s writing again. There’s a delightful weirdness to it, I love the colorful adjectives, her way of describing characters that is unlike anyone else.

There’s the little girl who sees ghosts and knows fun and sometimes inappropriate facts, there’s the middle brother who can talk to dogs and is the most teenage boy sounding boy I’ve read in so long, there’s the oldest brother who is a genius musician but overall disaster, and the rainbow haired girl who unites them all.

I love how Nelson writes families and that is essential to this story.

It reminded me at the beginning and in parts of the movie “Raise Your Voice” (yes the one with Hillary Duff) paired with Emily Henry’s “The Love that Split the World”, all in Nelson’s unmistakable hand.

It took me a few chapters to get invested, I haven’t read middle-grade in a while so being flung into a 12 year old’s head was unexpected. I rarely read blurbs if I know the author so it caught me off guard. Miles perspective brought much of the comedic relief and was my favorite for a lot of it. I wish I had gotten more of Wynton.

As for Cassidy, I liked her but there was so much she had to do, so much she had to be. It was almost too much for one character and her chapters felt longer than everyone else’s. I wanted more time with the siblings. More bright interludes.

This was a really heavy read, it tore me up in the way disappointed children always do. It is also the whole reason I created a netgalley account. “I’ll give you the sun” changed my life, an opportunity to read a new Jandy Nelson book after years… I had to take it. That this book lived up to even half of all the expectations I thrust upon it is a feat.

I loved the recipes, the writings that all tied together in the end.

The romance made me kind of uncomfortable honestly. And again I wanted to see more of a set conclusion to the Cain and Abel arc, I wanted to see Miles and Wynton while he was conscious. I hope Wynton plays again.

If this novel had been a little less ambitious it might have been more impactful in parts, I was always more interested in the Fall siblings and I was reading to find my way back to them. The past in contrast was of less interest though I did enjoy watching the puzzle unfold.

I would have liked the curse to have been more than it was, more looming somehow. It did not give me that ominous feeling familial curses normally do.

Overall, I really enjoyed it though so much was happening and it made it difficult to piece together a truly satisfying ending. I am as in love with Nelson’s writing and characters as ever and could not be more grateful to have been approved for this e-arc. My first ever approval and certainly one I will treasure forever.

I adored Jandy Nelson's I'll Give You the Sun, so I entered this story with extremely high expectations. Even though When the World Tips Over didn't exactly meet these standards, I still had a lovely experience reading it. As always, Nelson does an incredible job portraying complex familial relationships, especially the connections between Wynton, Miles, and Dizzy. The writing also stood out to me, with so many beautiful quotes sprinkled throughout the story. Overall, I found the plot progression and the many interwoven threads coming together to be very satisfying. One thing Nelson is very talented at is writing multilayered story lines that intertwine in unexpected ways, and this is no exception.

While my overall experience was positive, there are few personal gripes that impacted my enjoyment of the story. First of all, five hundred pages is a lot, especially for a contemporary YA novel. The length of the story never caused me to lose in interest in the novel, but it did occasionally make it difficult for me follow the story, which I can imagine would be even more difficult for younger YA readers. Although I appreciated moments from the past being incorporated into the novel, they sometimes took over the plot and detracted from the current story line. Another very small critique is that there is a specific relationship included in the story that I just couldn't get behind, and I wish it could've been portrayed as a fully platonic relationship instead. However, none of these things had a major effect on my reading experience, and I don't think that they will register with most readers. My overall impression of the story was quite positive, and it is definitely one that I'll be thinking about far into the future. If you're looking for a heartfelt YA contemporary with touches of magic and you don't mind a longer and slower paced story, you should definitely check this out!

This was absolutely beautiful. It is the kind of book that leaves an imprint on your soul. After staying up all night to finish reading, I immediately wanted to start over, and have not stopped thinking about it since. It feels very special when a book hits you like that.

The sexual content in this YA book made me uncomfortable, especially when a lot of it was from a 12-year-old girl’s perspective.

Twelve.

It just felt so unnecessary and potentially harmful. I liked the writing style and character dynamics, but it was just really difficult to put aside my issues with reading about a child masturbating (as one example). The teen watching an excessive amount of porn didn’t help.

Just because something happens doesn’t mean we need to normalize it or romanticize it or enjoy witnessing it. I really tried to give this a chance, but I couldn’t do it.

Is there anything Jandy Nelson can't write? Every book delivers like a weapon straight to your heart. It leaves you open, bruised, bleeding, and changed. It would be an absolute honor to carry this book on our shelves!

I want to say I wish every book felt like this but I don’t because if there were a million shooting stars out there you’d never know how special it was and that’s what a Jandy Nelson book is - a shooting star.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an ARC of this novel.

In the town of Paradise Springs, in Northern California, there is a family of essentially good people, descended from the legendary town founder Alonso Fall. With the ‘astonishing birth’ of Alonso, who lit up ‘the dim and dreary’ world just for coming into it, came a family curse that is passed along generationally. It is a curse that keeps brothers locked in hatred, with terrible consequences for them and everyone they love. A century later, his descendants, the family of Theo Fall, live in a state of high anxiety.

Eldest son, rock violinist extraordinaire Wynton, mesmerizes all listeners. He sleeps with his father’s trumpet and tests limits constantly and urgently. He picks on his younger brother Miles without pity.

´Perfect Miles’, as he is called, seems to be the most blessed of all teenagers: ‘Total strangers went giddy and catatonic just to see miles walk across the street.’ He can read dogs’ minds, especially his beloved Sadie’s. Miles is handsome, intelligent and charismatic, confused by his sexuality and hurt by Wynton’s cruelty.

Sister Dizzy has a lively imagination, and has unknowingly inherited a Fall signature trait. She has synaesthesia, the ability to smell colours, while other family members can see or taste them. Dizzy collects words and information to an extraordinary degree. Insecure and introverted, she is so oblivious to her own essential worth that she is fundamentally accident-prone, as though she doesn’t care if she lives or dies. She adores Wynton but feels distant from Miles and their mother, Bernadette, who have their own special bond.

Bernadette is a talented chef, especially revered for her chocolate soufflés, who runs the Blue Fork restaurant alongside the exalted family vineyards that Theo has inherited through his paternal line. Much of her story is told in letters that she never mails, to her children, their father, friends, family and even objects. This is her lifeline as she worries about her children, the family finances, and, most of all, Theo.

The Fall family is seriously adrift. The source of their distress is a loss revealed in the opening chapter. Theo Fall, loved by family and community, had disappeared twelve years before on a routine drive out of town. The only explanation anyone could offer was that the ´dark winds’ that periodically blew through Paradise Springs in January were responsible. And their hope, although none of them is aware of it until her own story unfolds, is their individual relationships with the young, beautiful, enigmatic and seemingly magical Cassidy.

The author writes beautifully and believably about this special family and what they suffer, alone and together, as they wait in ever fading hope for a happy conclusion to their dilemma, or at least an explanation for the mystery behind it.

Although I wasn’t tempted to give up, there were many repetitive passages due to the multiple perspectives in alternating chapters. Cassidy pops in and out of lives and timelines without much context. The magical realism that pervades the narrative is at times spell-binding, at other times confusing. But this YA book, in the view of someone long past the YA category, is an enthralling story about how blind we can be to both our strengths and weaknesses, and how sometimes that blindness is a choice we make. Dizzy’s conclusion sums it up perfectly: ‘life was a soggy sock you can’t take off.’

Because ‘books for young readers’ is a bit ambiguous a category, be aware that there is graphic sex, drug abuse, violence, and ‘language,’ though not without context.

When the World Tips Over by Jandy Nelson was everything I could have wanted it to be and so much more. I have patiently waited ten years for Jandy Nelson to release a new book and she definitely did not disappoint with this one. When the World Tips Over still has that Jandy Nelson magic writing and leaves you feeling something (~magic~). I loved the way the story is told and how it all comes together at the end. I loved all the characters and their flaws. I just want to hug everyone and not let them go (maybe do a people pile with them). I am so excited for this book to be out in the world so I can recommend it to EVERYONE.

The author spent a really long time getting us acquainted and familiar with the various characters. By the time something actually started to happen, I was bored and tired.

Like the characters in the story, I also liked Cassidy and her penchant for making word lists because that's something I do. Sadly, I do not have rainbow hair but I did have blue hair once upon a time.

I don't think this is a middle school level read due to its content, perhaps a high school read or a very carefully explained and processed advanced middle school read. It discusses some important things, but as a whole is not something I would give my kid to read. I myself wish I'd been given more trigger warnings.

Lastly, it was cool to read a book with characters that have synesthesia but the rest of the read was not worth it for me.

Thank you Penguin Teen Canada for this ARC! I had a blast at the Summerween event but unfortunately this book was not a hit for me.

**3.5 STARS**

Content Warning: family trauma, family secrets, parental abandonment, parental neglect, sexual assault, profanity

The last time I read a Jandy Nelson book was 10 years ago when she published I’ll Give You the Sun and I loved it. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one but I knew it would be emotional. Here are my thoughts:

Likes:

*The characters are so unique! Dizzy, Miles and Wynton are siblings and dealing with their dad leaving them years ago in very different ways. Cassidy who is living the nomad life with her mother who has some mental health issues that she doesn’t quite understand. Each one of them has a different story to tell and a different journey. I like how real each one of them are.

*I think the characters that stood out most to me in this book was Cassidy and Miles. Cassidy’s story is really touching, scary, but touching. Miles is the perfect son, but he’s hiding his true self, and he has a dog that he can communicate with mentally!

*This story is made up of so many stories – but one emerges in the second half and it’s the story of Bernadette who is the mother of Dizzy and the two boys. It’s intense.

*One thing this book does is make you feel all kinds of emotions – especially in the second half of the story when truths are exposed.

Dislikes:

*It was hard for me to get into this story because there are so many characters, and also so many stories. Each character is telling their story and in their own way, then midway into the book there is the story about the Fall ancestors. It was a little too much for me and felt too long.

*I struggled with the pacing. When it was Cassidy’s POV, I felt immersed and steady in the story but when it was the other POV’s I was thrown off and there are letters too. I think the whole story was choppy which kind of works because this story is a wild, emotional ride, but it was also frustrating.

Final Thoughts:

I had a hard time rating this book because I struggled in the first part of it but I pushed through and I found some of this story really raw and compelling, especially Cassidy’s. This book is emotional. It’s a book that’s hard to describe but has everything from romance, to magic, to family drama, trauma and secrets. I wish the pacing was better and it was a little long. I don’t think I loved it the way I loved I’ll Give You the Sun but it’s definitely a memorable story and I actually think this would be actually great as a tv series because the characters are so compelling. Overall, this is a compelling read.

🦇 When the World Tips Over Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD What's your favorite book about siblings (if you don't have one, you NEED to pick up a book by Jandy Nelson)?

🦇 Years ago, the Fall kids’ father mysteriously disappeared, cracking the family into pieces. Dizzy sees spirits, Miles hides the truth of himself behind the guise of perfectionism, and Wynton is on the brink of fame or self-destruction. When an enigmatic rainbow-haired girl shows up, she tips the Falls’ world over. She might be an angel. Or a saint. Or an ordinary girl. Somehow, she is vital to each of them. But before anyone can figure out who she is, catastrophe strikes, leaving the Falls more broken than ever. And more desperate to be whole. With road trips, rivalries, family curses, love stories within love stories within love stories, and sorrows and joys passed from generation to generation, this is the intricate, luminous tale of a family’s complicated past and present. And only in telling their stories can they hope to rewrite their futures.

💜 Jandy Nelson has done it again, weaving magic into every word while creating an intricate, profound, heart-claiming story of family and love. Each of the Falls siblings is so well-developed, so vivid that the heart-aching loss for their father cries off the page, their passions bleeding color into every chapter. And yet, you can't fully know Dizzy, Miles, or Wynton without seeing them from their siblings' point of view--proving that sometimes, those we love know us better than we know ourselves. This story is told in a seamless blend of present and past, family histories & different perspectives overlapping. I fell in love with each character perhaps in the way they loved one another--Cassidy most of all, whose storytelling is captivating, enthralling, dizzying all at once. The word choice is flawlessly executed, giving each character a heartbeat, every heartbreak leaving fissures in their wake. It was beyond worth waiting a decade for another Jandy Nelson book; a story that has bled so much color into my world as a reminder of what well-written prose and character development can be when a passionate writer is at the helm. Despite this story's generational trauma, the love and joy found between the characters, the LOVE built between moments of pain, transcends all else. It tips over.

💙 There are a few trigger warnings you should be aware of before diving into this tender tale: abandonment, addiction/alcoholism, car accident, death, grief, homophobia, infidelity, mental illness, physical abuse, rape/sexual assault.

🦇 If you read one book I've recommended this year, let it be this one. Let Dizzy, Miles, Wynton, and their angel into your heart. This is not a YA book; it's a would-be classic that transcends time and genre. Recommended for fans of Rainbow Rowell, Casey McQuiston, and Becky Albertalli.

✨ The Vibes ✨
🎻 Siblings/Family Secrets
🌈 Multiple POVs / Timelines
🍇 Rivalries
🥧 Magical Realism
🪽 Family Curse
🍇 Queer MMC
🌈 Poetic Prose
🎻 Mental Health Rep

🦇 Major thanks to the author @jandy.nelson and publisher @randomhouse @penguinteen for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #WhentheWorldTipsOver

💬 Quotes
❝ Their eternity was only each other. ❞
❝ Her mother...once told Dizzy that it used to be believed a white truffle was made when lightning hit and entered an ordinary mushroom. That’s how Dizzy thought of Wynton— unlike the rest of the ordinary mushrooms like her, he had lightning inside him. ❞
❝ Deep garnet color, hints of cherries, roses, has you talking to the moon and the moon talking right back, pairs well with heartbreak, makes you feel so in love you might ask strangers to marry. ❞
❝ He decided this would have to be the one slow dance in the history of humankind that never ended. No matter if asteroids careened down, wars broke out, earthquakes toppled cities, the two of them would still, in a thousand years, be here by this river, in starlight, under the redwood trees, swaying together, more one than two, because he suddenly somehow knew deep in his heart that this girl was the kingdom, and for once in his stupid screwed-up life, he was the one who had the keys. ❞
❝ And now she’s saying someone named Felix, who drove with her down to Paradise Springs, had called her Scheherazade, the Persian queen in A Thousand and One Nights who saved her own life by telling stories. She says she plans on keeping you alive in the same way— by telling you her story. You hope that means her story is a long one and she’ll stay by your side forever. ❞
❝ She also writes in a journal. When I ask her what she’s writing, she says she’s trying to crash into infinity with words. ❞
❝ I never want her to know that a life is an abandoned unfinished story. ❞
❝ There’s an invisible artery joining the hearts of mothers and daughters through which pain is transferred from one generation to the next. ❞
❝ She didn’t know what people were supposed to do with the leftover love that no one wanted anymore. ❞
❝ A real love story is not falling in love once, but again and again through all sorts of incarnations. Theirs was a real love story. ❞
❝ He was the guy full of voltage and fury, who blew the lids off jars, who walked into a room and electrocuted all present. ❞
❝ Who knew one kiss could turn someone into a brand-new person? ❞
❝ I do believe now that when the world tips over, joy spills out with all the sorrow. But you have to look for it. ❞

(Actual: 4.25⭐) I loved this book - my third one read now by Nelson, and quite possibly tied as being my favorite (with the current titleholder being "I'll Give You the Sun". The writing here was so rich and beautiful, even during some of its darker corners; I found myself going back to re-read passages I had bookmarked over again even as I kept trucking along. The one critique I will give though is that I wish the pacing had a been a little tighter, especially since we're following multiple characters across generations.... but, overall, Nelson has a big enough soft spot in my heart that this was easy to ignore haha. Overall truly great and a wonderful reading experience for me!

THANK you netgalley for the chance to review this.
I think this is marketed as YA? I dunno, it feels so adult to me. Not in a "young kids shouldn't read this" view, but in a "ADULTS SHOULD READ THIS' view.
This takes place in a somewhat magical world and follows the Fall family (Dizzy, Miles, and Wynton) as they navigate life following the mysterious disappearance of their father, Theo. There's also Cassidy, a 'hero' character who has interacted with all 3 Fall children in some way. The story loops back and forth between these four and a past timeline with Cassidy, where we learn how she came to meet the children and her very profound impact on their lives. It also has epistolary sections as we ready through "Chef Mom Fall"s diaries and a story Cassidy tells to a vagabond traveler, Felix. It has magical realism, romance, betrayal, strong and nuanced themes of depression, childhood angst, a beautiful LGBTQ story line...you name it, When the World Tips Over has it.
I wanted to highlight multiple sections of this story. The prose is beautiful. The imagery is fantastic. The underlying messaging is just profound. I LOVED every second of this and almost want to restart.

She’s stilllll got it. It’s been 10 years since Jandy Nelson’s last published book I’ll Give You the Sun, which is a book I love wholeheartedly. I was so excited when I heard she had a new book coming out and the scream I scrumpt when I got the NetGalley copy! I don’t know how she does it, but Jandy Nelson scratches every itch in my book brain—the themes of her story, the characters, the writing, the relationship dynamics. I just can’t get enough. Her books always center around family, primarily highlighting sibling relationships, and this book is no different. Twelve year old Dizzy, 17-year old Miles, and 19-year old Wynton are all fully formed character with their own motivations, desires, and fears. They are dealing with the fallout of their father’s disappearance, while also navigating their own complex feelings and identities. One thing to note is that Dizzy and Miles definitely exhibit a distinctly adolescent voice in their inner thoughts, reflective of their ages. To me it added a layer of authenticity because as much as I loved them, there were moments I found them to be annoying, as any 33-year old would find a 12-year old and 17-year old annoying. When a strange girl appears in their town, the story of this family’s complicated past and present, begins to unravel. I loved how this narrative structure played out, with flashbacks to the past that were interwoven in a way that perfectly showcased how interconnected all the characters were. Every relationship between the different characters and every moment was poignant and nuanced. If you’ve not read Jandy Nelson, do yourself a huge favor and get to it ASAP. 

Will post review on TikTok on 9/1/24
Will post review on Youtube on 9/1/24
Will post goodreads review on 9/1/24

Absolutely 5 stars.

This book sits so deeply in my feels I do believe it has catapulted itself into my favorites of all time. This is largely due to Miles, I have not related more to a character in a story probably ever. That mixed with the magic that is Jandy Nelson's authorial voice, and her ability to just write the LGBTQ+ teen experience in the US is just unmatched. This story has a mystery element, generational trauma, fascinating family dynamics, and just all the mess of life in every stage. I know this is a YA book and many people write off that age range, but this book has so much in it I just think people should give it a chance. Literally just pick it up already and read it.

Thank you to Penguin Teen for providing a copy for review via NetGalley.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was ecstatic when I found out I got approved for this ARC, and the book did not disappoint. “When the world tips over” deals with so many rough topics but still manages to have a fun romantic aspect to it. I loved all of the past family drama that made the story what it was. The sibling relationships were very realistic and fun to read. Definitely lived up to my expectations after reading “I’ll give you the sun”.

this is a very ambitious book, and it accomplishes all it set out to do. it's a generational tale, a fairytale, even. it follows many, many characters and many, many plotlines and i fell in love with each and every one. this is a book that is made to be reread, and i can't wait until i can get my hands on a copy and annotate the hell out of it. jandy nelson loves to write a story where everything connects, comes full circle, and i will eat it up every time.