2.5/5
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. (view spoiler) 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. (view spoiler) 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.