From the Bookshelf of Baltimore County Public Library Summer Reading BCPL SRC …

All Fall Down (Embassy Row, #1)

Ally Carter

Start date: June 22, 2015

Discussion: 2015 Summer Reading

Discussion leader: Tonette

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2015 Summer Reading

Maze Runner-Movie vs. Novel
By Jaquelin · 4 posts · 29 views

last updated Feb 08, 2016 01:51PM

WHY??
By Jaquelin · 5 posts · 59 views

last updated Aug 15, 2015 12:11PM

What Members Thought

Feb 07, 2015 Jaina Rose rated it it was amazing

Shelves: blogged, heartbreaking

This review is also available on my blog, Read Till Dawn.

I have a love/hate relationship with hyped books. I love them because everyone is talking about them, so it's like one big happy family of fans talking about one special book. I hate hyped books because I almost always don't really like them once I actually read them. They make me feel left out and peculiar because I have no driving passion for a book series where children kill children (ala The Hunger Games) or main characters die tragic This review is also available on my blog, Read Till Dawn.

I have a love/hate relationship with hyped books. I love them because everyone is talking about them, so it's like one big happy family of fans talking about one special book. I hate hyped books because I almost always don't really like them once I actually read them. They make me feel left out and peculiar because I have no driving passion for a book series where children kill children (ala The Hunger Games) or main characters die tragic deaths at a young age (I'm looking at you, The Fault in Our Stars!). I always approach a new and popular book with the air of one determined to find utter enjoyment in what probably holds anything but. This was my attitude when I checked All Fall Down out of the library and the reason it sat around for half a week before I got around to picking it up. Once I began it, though, I could not put it down. It grabbed me up, swirled me around, and spat me back out disoriented, heartbroken, and gasping for air.

I'll tel you what this book is not. It is not about a shallow girl with a bunch of ridiculous insecurities and two best-friend boys that both want to be with her.

Well, I mean, it is that on a certain level. But Grace's insecurities aren't about her looks or her popularity: they're about her mother's death. Her mother's murder. Because she was there the night her mother died, and she knows what she saw: she saw her mother shot by a man with a creepy scar. And no matter how much the people around her try to convince her she's delusional, she knows she's not. As the story goes along and the waters become murkier, though, she begins to doubt her own sanity - because after all, if she really was sane why would she have to work so hard to make people believe that?

As for the boys, there is and there isn't a love triangle, it really depends on who you ask. When I read the book, I saw no triangle. When other reviewers read the book, they did. There are two main boys in the book: Noah, the charmingly silly son of two ambassadors who initially becomes Grace's best friend by assignment and later by choice, and Alexei, son of the Russian ambassador, who has been best friends with Grace's big brother for as long as Grace can remember. It's Alexei (whom Grace internally refers to as "the boy next door") who is the only real potential love interest, and I loved the romance spattered throughout the book. Grace has her own band of friends helping her with her investigations, and only turns to Alexei when she has nowhere else to turn. He is her safety net when all else falls apart, and it is so sweet! I can't wait to watch the two of them slowly evolve into closer dependence throughout the series - this has the potential to be one of the best slow-burns I've ever read.

While this isn't a book for everyone, it's definitely a book for me. I loved every minute of anguish, confusion, and heartbreak that Grace put me through, and I can't wait to see how she learns to cope with her terrible past as the series continues. Embassy Row #2 just can't come out fast enough! ...more

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Jan 16, 2015 Andrea rated it did not like it

Shelves: young-adult

My opinion and review may be jaded by the fact that I love Carter's Heist Society series. I expected to love this book equally, but I didn't. By the last page, I pretty much hated it. Overall, I just found the characters and setting very hard to visualize and connect with. The characters themselves seemed to come and go suddenly, making it a bit confusing, and their relationships [with each other]seemed very shallow. The mystery of the "Scarred Man" and what really happened to her mother failed ...more

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Mar 17, 2019 Alexia rated it liked it

I received this book in a giveaway a few years ago but just now got around to reading it. I liked the world building but I would have liked more information on how Adria came to be. All Fall down started out a little slow but the last half of the book is intriguing and I'm going to read book 2. ...more

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Jan 10, 2015 Ashlee marked it as to-read