All Fall Down by Ally Carter

[book-info]

Honestly, I read this book ages ago and have been trying to find time to sit down and write the review. The distance between my reading it and sitting down to review it is probably a good thing because about the kindest thing I can find to say about this book is that it is not at all memorable. The blurb looked interesting and Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series is fairly popular in the book crowd, so I thought I’d give this one a go. @ myself: why do you do these things to yourself.

So, All Fall Down follows the main character, Grace, as she…does things? The initial mystery/tragic main character background is that Grace’s mother is dead; murdered, Grace believes, by some guy. Grace’s description of said murderer dude is creepily akin to Slenderman but you know, describing a ~shadowy~ figure doesn’t really hold up well so obviously no one believes her. Then the story jumps to Grace moving in with her granddad, an American Ambassador. Said Embassy sits on a road, a ~row~, of Embassies so you get situations like Iran’s Embassy bordering America’s. Because really simplified political reasons, I assume. This potentially interesting setup doesn’t really go anywhere and the story falls into a generic love story/love triangle with added teenage drama between girls and it is honestly the most boring. I cared so little I couldn’t even tell you the names of the other characters.

Oh, but then there’s like this tension with the Iranian Embassy because of course there is. Because the Middle East is always the ~Enemy. I don’t even know, it was just not good.

Blech, this book was all over the place. It took an initially interesting premise and just bogged it down with cliche, generic stereotyping. I was deeply unimpressed with the whole thing with the Iranian Embassy and that on top of a very lackluster story filled with forgettable characters made for a very dull read.