In the interest of full disclosure, I am acquainted with the author.

2.5 stars

Mixed feelings about this book.

At first, I was enamored with All These Things I've Done. Mainly because of its originality. Even though the novel is pushed as another dystopia, it is more of a mafia crime drama, at least in the beginning. The setting is futuristic - 2083, but hardly dystopic. The end of the century US is overrun by lawlessness, corruption and rationing, however there is nothing particularly oppressive about it. In fact, it actually reminded me of 1990s Russia - the civ More...

Let's be clear, I did a lot of skim-reading and not-reading after the 150 page marker because there was nothing much - actually, nothing at all - about this book that I can say I enjoyed. I'm not surprised after reading a lot of my friends' negative reviews, but I do admit to a little curiosity sparking in me when this arrived from the publishers claiming to be The Godfather with a dystopian twist. This is nothing at all, slightly, remotely like The Godfather beyond the mention of mafia - and I More...

The status comments I made for this book do a lot to explain my descending feelings. I'm just flat bummed that Zevin took things in the direction she did, because I started out absolutely LOVING this story.

To be honest, the only reason I was initially engaged in the book is because I liked Anya and her family. The worldbuilding is practically nonexistent, and for any book that touts itself as a dystopian, that's not good. Chocolate and caffeine have been outlawed, and there's little-to-no expla More...

2.5 stars

All These Things I’ve Done and I got off to a bit of a rocky start. It frustrated me, bored me a little, and even slightly offended me. I quickly decided this was going to be anything but a seamless read. And I was right – sort of. Although I do still have doubts about whether or not I can say ‘I liked it’, the last 200 pages or so of the book were much better than the first 100. In fact, the improvement was enough to stop me from abandoning the book. I did find it more engaging after t More...

All These Things I've Done was surprisingly good. I was completely captivated by this intriguing and tension filled story.

I have been reading quite a bit of dystopia lately and I loved that this novel did not focus on matching people or the government trying to control everybody. In the year 2083 they are plenty of problems and changes but overall it feels more like a realistic future. Chocolate is illegal (EEK! no chocolate would make me crazy) together with a million other things like caffeine More...

This is the first book I've given up on in a long time.

And some might think it strange. Because, looking at it objectively . . . is it better than Twilight? Is it better than Evermore? Is it better than Hush, Hush?

I think I'd have to say yes to all of those. But the difference is, however terrible those books may be, the one thing they did do is keep me interested. They kept me invested enough in the story that I wanted to know how it all turned out. And that just did not happen with All These T More...

Also appears on The Screaming Nitpicker.

So there's this book here, All These Things I've Done. In it, chocolate is illegal, water is heavily rationed, you can hardly find paper anymore, and new clothes haven't been made in decades. The world has gone to hell in a handbasket, pretty much. Our main character is a mafiya princess whose father ran it before he was murdered. With both of her parents dead, she takes care of her brother, sister, and dying grandmother. The new DA's son has a crush on he More...

The first few pages of this I absolutely could not take seriously. Honestly, you try and keep a straight face when someone is talking about drinking espresso like it’s getting shot up with meth. The feeling passed fairly quickly though and in this story I found a character that I could really like.

Quick Overview: Anya Balanchine is known mainly as the daughter of the most notorious (and dead) chocolate crime boss. All Anya wants though is to stay under the radar and keep her and her family safe. More...

I was pretty excited when I got this book. A future society where chocolate is banned and mafia included? Omg! Sounds so exciting. Especially since I'm such a chocolate whore. Haha.

Despite the ridiculousness of the premise I totally devoured up the whole caffeine and chocolate being outlawed because it just sounds cool. I don't know what I'd do if they were banned. I think I'd go crazy because I'm Asian! How can you go without tea? TEA?! But I'm just curious... Why would you ban chocolate and ca More...

LOVE this! Even though the narrative is first person, the way the story is told, it’s almost like a much older Anya is reminiscing about her misspent youth to her own grandchildren in a distant future. I liked Anya immediately and basically hung on her every word.

Wow. This book was nothing like what I was expecting. And I mean that in a good way!

I loved how All These Things I’ve Done was set in the near future, so the world hadn’t progressed drastically. I liked being able to recognize things from today. For example, when Anya goes to Liberty Island (which wasn’t a tourist spot anymore), she talks about a statue of feet wearing sandals which I recognized to be the remains of the Statue of Liberty. But things still had changed. Water is rationed, paper bo More...

All These Things I've Done is a new take on the dystopian genre. In a world where chocolate is banned? Who wouldn't want to read about that? This is the first book in the Birthright series that you will either love or...not get along with.

Set in New York City, 2083, 16-year-old Anya is the one keeping her family together. Her parents died in a car crash. Her brother is suffering from that accident. Her grandmother is dying. What does she do? She does the best she can to keep her family safe, but More...

This review is also posted on my blog, In The Good Books.

Anya is essentially the head of her family. Her grandmother is on her deathbed, her older brother's mental capacity took a turn for the worse after a car accident, and her parents are long dead. But that's not unexpected, given that they led the Balanchine crime family, specialising in distributing illegal chocolate.

She was an exceptionally likeable character; sensible, pragmatic, wry, and strong. She was fiercely loyal of her family, desp More...

3.5 stars

This is a fun, exciting and at times thrilling read that felt like a cross between a dystopian and a contemporary book. There's a lot of things that Gabrielle intertwines into her story that captured my attention, and kept invested in the over all story even when some things didn't quite come together for me. It's unique and refreshingly different from the normal YA books that have been released lately. I think YA fans will really enjoy it because of that.

Anya is a character I both adm More...

A couple of months ago a small package arrived on my doorstep. To my amazement, it included not only a copy of the high anticipated All These Things I’ve Done, the newest book by the lovely Gabrielle Zevin, but also some chocolate covered espresso beans. The espresso beans ended up being delicious but the book was even better! Enchanting and engaging, All These Things I’ve Done has to be one of the best books I’ve read so far this year, and given the fact that it’s the first in series, I also th More...

The year is 2083 in All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin and the US has gone nuts, banning the life essentials of coffee and chocolate. Anya, 16, is doing the best she can by her family meaning she takes care of her brother, Leo, who has suffered a traumatic brain injury and thinks like an 8 year old, despite being 23, and her 12 year old sister Natty. With both parents dead, Anya’s legal guardian is her bedridden, dying grandmother, Nana. She’s definitely got a lot on her plate. Did I More...

To make myself feel like an equal-opportunity teacher, I like to force myself to read some "YA chick books" so I can pitch them to reluctant reader girls the way I do so many sports, war, and horror books to reluctant reading boys (and girls, as girls seem less bothered by a book's gender target audience). But mea culpa, I'm here to confess I am a fraud. I cannot bring myself to read a single sentence of the Twilight series. Ditto anything by the much beloved Sarah Dessen (#1 with 8th-grade girl More...

Let me first say that the first half of this book deserves 3 stars. I really enjoyed the setting even though I still don't quite understand why the world is the way it is. Annie, Scarlet, Natty, Leo, and Win were all great characters in the beginning. I felt like the story moved along pretty well and that things were really going to get good with Annie's mafia family background. Unfortunately the second half of the book did not deliver at least for me anyway. I got tired of waiting for the actio More...

This wasn't much of anything. It wasn't a love story, it wasn't a dystopic future, it wasn't an exciting action crime drama, it certainly wasn't science fiction as it is cataloged at the library. This story fell short of being defined in any genre just as it fell short in being interesting or appealing in any way.

The love interest, Win, was boring and annoying (he wore lots of hats and called his girlfriend "lass") and the main character Anya and her family was unsympathetic despite the sympathy More...

I read the last page, closed the book, smiled and kind of hugged/patted it lol Have you ever gotten that feeling? All These Things I’ve Done was the ultimate comfort and deliciously good read.

I fall in love with Zevin’s writing. Her characters are PHENOMENAL! Anya Balanchine, she is such an honest. I was with her every step of the way. And even through I didn’t get I chance to meet her father, he seemed like a wise man(even though he was a notorious crime boss.)Who shaped Anna to be the young br More...

This book was a total air ball for me. The premise sounded so fun— a futuristic society with a Prohibition-era-type ban on chocolate,a black market run by mobster families, and a teenage heir to the family empire. MURDERS! POISONING! Boredom? Boredom. Oh, and tepid romance and a selfish MC. Imagine all the places this book could’ve gone. Yeah, that’s right, I’m thinking total badass teenage girl threatening her way across NYC and putting her dysfunctional family business back in order. (I mean, More...

I just had to read a book in which two of my favorite substances are illegal, coffee and chocolate. As I had to read it pretty much straight through, I'm tapping it as a thoroughly engaging read. Anya, a 16-year-old, is the daughter of a dead mafia boss (head of the Balanchine chocolate family) and mother who was killed mistakenly in her husband's car. Anya is responsible for holding her small family that's left together, while trying to have a life as a teenager, a teenager who becomes involved More...

I really wanted to give All These Things I've Done five stars because it was so darn unique. I mean REALLY original. But in the end I couldn't, for a couple of reasons. Number one, chocolate and caffeine were illegal and considered to be drugs. I thought the idea was pretty cool, but it just didn't work for me because I couldn't imagine people clamoring for the stuff like addicts do for cocaine and other serious drugs. It was just very difficult to suspend disbelief. But I can honestly say I app More...

Anya Balanchine lives in a world where chocolate is illegal, water is scarce and New York City is a ghost of what it once was. Anya's life has been touched by tragedy, if not hardship, as the daughter of an infamous (and dead) crime boss. With her parents gone, it falls to Anya to take care of her siblings and protect them from the family business.

But when the family business is illegal chocolate, it's hard to stay on the sidelines--especially when the new boy at school that you might like happe More...

RATING: 4.5 WIN STARS!!!!!

This book I REALLY enjoyed. I love paranormal, but, absolutely no paranormal to be seen on these New York streets. This book is a mafiya dystopian in the year 2082 where chocolate and coffee are illegal. The Balanchine family are one of the big 5 chocolate families. How original!

What I liked was by the end of chapter 1, you had a good idea of the type of person Anya was, strong, determined, intelligent, protective and we are introduced to the important people in her li More...

Anya is definitely not a typical teenager. She is the primary caregiver for her ailing grandmother, her older brother who hasn't been the same since an accident when he was younger and her highly intelligent kid sister. I really enjoyed seeing the difference sides of Anya. She's a realist and wiser than her years and very protective towards her siblings. Because of their grandmother's failing health and death of their parents, Anya is more of an unintentional mother figure towards her siblings. More...

A different futuristic novel with an ageless love story. Star-crossed lovers Anya and Win navigate the waters of forbidden love as Win's ambitious father forbids their relationship because of its adverse effect on his career. Anya's family, a mafia crime family involved in the illegal manufacturing of chocolate, are skeptical of the relationship for obvious reasons. Add to this the complexities of a broken family and the challenges of high school. The desire to do what is right for everyone but More...

The story of Anya is pretty straightforward. Her father was in the mafiya, but now he’s dead. She’s trying to get through school, keep her siblings safe, and take care of her dying Grandma. Also she has a good supply of chocolate, which is essentially illegal. Oh, and her relatives keep shouting the word “birthright” at her. When her ex-boyfriend gets poisoned from her family’s chocolate, she finds herself on an ugly stage. Suddenly she has to deal with more issues than usual.

I’ll be the first t More...

Kurzbeschreibung:
Ein Mädchen zwischen High School und Verbrechen, zwischen Liebe und Verantwortung
New York 2083: Wasser und Papier sind knapp, Kaffee und Schokolade sind illegal. Smartphones sind für Minderjährige verboten und um 24 Uhr ist Sperrstunde. Die Balanchine Familie ist das Zentrum des illegalen Schokoladenhandels in New York. Doch die Eltern von Anya Balanchine sind bereits tot, und Anya ist mit 16 Jahren das Familienoberhaupt. Sie kümmert sich um ihre Geschwister und die kranke Großm More...