While I liked What Big Teeth, We All Fall Down was so disappointing that I have lost interest in Szabo's books. The damaging representation is the nail in the coffin for this book. A book better to avoid.

This was a really uncomfortable read to get through and I"m sure the author and publishers know why at this point. I think it had potential on the LGBTQ side of things but it was also done in a way that left me rather confused and feeling iffy. As for the story and content, I was disappointed to see that while this was a decently sized book, not much actually happened and the ending was very lacking. As for the reason I will be rating this low and not recommending it, this book was full of racism that honestly, could have been removed entirely. Why make the hero a black man if all you are going to do is throw the police at him (and show us a very detailed and uncomfortable torture/police brutality scene), belittle him, make him a caricature, and then demonize him when he shows his anger for the mistreatment he has been faced with? And let the perpetrators (aka. one of the other MCs) get away with it? And not just get away with it but the author puts her on a pedestal. I can't.

This wasn't the book for me, but thank you for allowing me the opportunity to read it. The cover caught my eye, but I wasn't able to finish it

I had to DNF this boook…. The tone in this book was not giving and sounds a bit degraded for me and I felt uncomfortable reading it :( The character and the plot wasn’t connective at all

Sadly I had to DNF this book due to a multitude of issues including harmful representation of BIPOC characters and how it wasn't properly addressed. I was really looking forward to reading this book based on the premise, but ultimately it fell flat. There was a lot of exposition and writing but it felt very slow and the character development was lacking. Also, the way that povs switched was confusing at times. I appreciated the queer representation in this book and the magical elements, but that couldn't make up for all the issues.

This book was definitely not for me. This is my first book by this author and I have to say the best part about this book is the cover. There were to many moments in the book that gave me the “ick”. Tones of racism and white privilege make the author seem a bit tone deaf of the current atmosphere of our world. I wasn’t comfortable for the majority of the book. Sorry, it’s a no from me.

I was not a fan of this book. I struggled to connect with the characters and the plot. Honestly it’s a bit problematic having a cast of white women fat shaming, police brutality, false accusations against pov character are just a few of the problematic issues I had with this book.

I loved the cover for this. After a few chapters though it was clear that the best art of this book was the art and the pitch on the back of the book. Still, I think the majority of readers will love this book and it will be a great entry into LGBTQ+ fantasy. 3/5 Stars

I had a hard time writing a review of this book because I made the mistake of reading the Goodreads review when I was only about 20% into it. They were particularly harsh, with a lot of mention of racial violence and violence against gay men that forced readers to put it down. I proceeded with caution, but I was motivated to read it for the same reasons many other readers likely were: I'm queer, and I read a lot of queer YA as someone who works with queer youth.

On that point, I would recommend this primarily to older teen readers, and think it is better suited to a new adult audience, as many others have stated. Both content and structure are complicated and nuanced, and there is a lot that might be missed by readers who aren't sitting with the book.

Secondly, it's a book that does need some engagement and discussion. There *is* violence in this book, and it *is* upsetting, particularly because it can be perpetrated by people we thought we were supposed to trust or admire, or at a bare minimum sympathize with. When recommending this to teen readers, I would invite them into conversation or make sure they had support to discuss what might come up for them.

Finally, the book deals with multiple experiences of gender, both trans characters and gender fluid characters. The ambiguity of characters' genders is part of what makes this a more difficult read. I personally found it to be a realistic portrayal of stumbling through finding and communicating who one is, and was excited to see characters with identities that are not often represented. Others' mileage may vary. I mention this because its 'queer bookness' is what drew me to it, and think it's worth being aware of when sharing the book with queer, trans, and gender non-conforming youth.

Wow, there was a lot of casual racism in this book. Really racist events happened and weren't addressed at all. While that was fitting with the overall (in my opinion poor) writing style, that is no excuse.

I also thought the world building was hard to get into and that things that could have been big events were simply stated as facts and glossed over in favor of giving the reader a drawn out police procedural.

I liked the fluidity of gender that was presented, the fact that it takes place in a magical land that is there for whoever needs it, and that some amount of the land's inhabitants are "monsters" of various ilk but otherwise I did not particularly enjoy this book.

Is the cover beautiful? Absolutely. Is anything else? Not really. There's no reason to have a white character pin a crime on an innocent Black man. And then on top of that to turn him into the villain of the story. Plus the way this book handles queer characters and queer rep is just gross. This book desperately needed sensitivity readers or maybe to have not been published at all.

I'm DNF'ing this book at 25%. I simply could not get into the book. The world was deeply confusing and not explained at all, the characters were not really established, and it was overall just very confusing. I had had high hopes for the book, which might have been enough to push through, but, after reading other people's reviews in which they discuss the deeply and blatantly racist and transphobic elements of the book, I decided simply to not finish the book, since I know that I will never be able to recommend it in good conscience and that its problems will only increase from the point in the narrative that I am currently at.

LOVE this cover. Also loved the part where I was anticipating this book but had not yet read it. Having read it, I’m really. Well. I think a lot of other people have said a lot better things on Goodreads and NetGalley than I have, and I will have to wave my hand vaguely towards them instead of linking to them. (Sorry, I am very lazy.) There were a lot of introductions of interesting concepts in this book, and there was either no pay-off or I think maybe they tried to get wrapped up but it was confusing and bad. Also, The Racism. One star.

I had high hopes for this title. I was excited for the LGBTQIA+ representation and the fantasy — there is a need for more LGBTQIA+ across more genres. Unfortunately, the story got clunky about half way. The multiple points of view started out okay and then it wasn’t.

This book is deeply racist and homophobic. It is deeply upsetting to see a gay Black man be framed for crimes he did not commit. To then frame his very valid rage as bad? I question the publisher’s decision to print this and would recommend a sensitivity reader for all of Szabo’s future work if they continue to publish it.

Unfortunately, I don't feel comfortable reading/reviewing this book due to some problematic themes brought to my attention.

I was really looking forward to this one, so I am quite disappointed that I did not enjoy it. I think it had a lot of potential but just didn’t deliver, not to mention there are some questionable choices made by the author. On the plus side, there is magic, which is always a good time, and all four main characters are LGBTQ+. One of them can actually physically change back-and-forth between a “male“ body and a “female“ body (trying to be respectful of how I phrase that - the character is never clarified as to being transgender or non binary or genderfluid). The book alternates between each of their POV‘s, which normally I’m a big fan of, but it’s not done very well in this book. It feels like there was about 200 pages cut randomly because the story doesn’t flow very well, and the POV changes are very, jumpy, for lack of a better word.

Then we get to the very casual racism…

Early in the book we see a “poster in a store window that showed a terrified white woman calling someone on a pay phone while in the background two Black men shook hands. That poster said [if you see something, say something, call RCPD]” . Ummm, WHAT?!?
One of the main characters, David, is Black, and a common theme throughout the book is depicting all of these random people who are startled seeing him or scared seeing him. Now, he is 7 feet tall, but still. He’s tall, big whoop. He is harassed by the police on several occasions, and when he is falsely accused of murder by another character the police arrest and torture him before he is released.
Here’s my problem with all this: normally when you see everyday racism depicted in a book, there is some sort of “this is bad“ message, right? But that doesn’t happen in this book. These situations are just presented and then we move along. Now, I’m a white woman, and even I knew this was all kinds of wrong while reading it. I can’t even imagine being a POC and reading this.
This was my first and last book from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley & Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Unfortunately I will not be finishing this book, or reviewing it. I am thankful for the Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the opportunity, but after listening to others in the community and reading multiple reviews this is not a book I feel comfortable engaging with.

I will not be finishing this book due to the racist undertones and themed observed throughout the novel and by BIPOC individuals who also read the novel.

The first chapters of We All Fall Down really set the stage for an interesting premise, as well as one that’s a bit odd, yet original. But after that point, things really started falling apart for me.

To summarize, this book needed to cover a lot of ground for a good execution; instead, there’s a lot of writing, yet it doesn’t really contribute to the overall story. There’s a lack of character development to start, which makes it difficult to follow the central plot – especially when we’re following so many POVs. There are gradual introductions to the world itself, but the combination of it being in America and also being its own magical entity felt disjointed. This is the first book in a series so there is more to be revealed, but for a story that’s quite dependent on its own setting, I don’t feel like we got enough detail here to really cement the storyline.

Because of the above, so much of We All Fall Down felt rushed in its execution. Whenever a major story event is told, it is done so in such a matter-of-fact way, making some scenes underwhelming and others insensitive.

The most significant example of this involves an ongoing investigation where several police officers in the area have been murdered by an unknown subject. One of the characters knows who the murderer is, and, in order to protect them, falsely accuses an innocent Black man of murder. He is immediately arrested and interrogated in poor conditions until another character realizes what happened. While this is something that can happen and be discussed in books, the complete dismissal of the event really rubbed me the wrong way. Questions of moral decision-making are not always done directly in books, but I at the very least expect some type of feeling of remorse from the character or disapproval from others. But in this book, the framing is treated like any other mundane event, and everyone else moves on as if nothing happened. Additionally, the character that did the framing is never really viewed as bad in any way for their actions, which was at the very least uncomfortable to read. This is also an issue with the misgendering of characters, and knowing that the author is queer themselves, I don’t believe this was intentional; rather, it was an attempt to make commentary on social issues that were poorly executed to the point of being harmful. Essentially, the lack of accountability and instead nonchalance put me off, especially for a book marketed for young readers.

So while I thought this book had promise, We All Fall Down sadly did not turn out the way I’d hoped. I think this book was trying to take on too much, didn’t hone in on anything specific, and didn’t know how to hone in on certain themes or story points in a sensible way.