In a non-linear and gripping timeline, And Then She Fell follows Alice while she grapples with becoming a new mother while also grieving the loss of her own mother. Alive is unsettled living away from her community and the support of her family. She hears voices that she identifies as her ancestors, her neighnours and husband become increasingly hostile with unknown motives. Alice doesn't know who she can trust and how to protect her daughter.

This novel was a deeply unsettling psychological horror with some very bleak realities for many Indigenous people in Canada.

This was a very visceral read about a woman's struggles with new motherhood and mental health breakdowns. This is also a story about the woman embracing her Indigenous culture and attempting to write an interpretation of her nation's creation story. While parts of this book were quite graphic and hard to read and others were confusing, I think this is the tone the author was going for as she was writing the main character's perspective in the middle of her mental health breakdown. Reading the author's note is so important for this one as we learn this story was inspired by her own and her mother's struggles. This is an important look at mental health, post-partum mental health, race, culture, racism, stereotypes and societal pressures.

This story is driven by a wonderful main character named Alice. Her journey is both joyful and sad while tugging on your heartstrings the whole way through the story. It honestly brought me to tears. The Mohawk traditions and stories included from Alice’s perspective give such a wonderful and culturally rich experience to the reader while portraying struggles many mothers can relate to. I highly recommend this book.

An interesting book that allows the reader a glimpse into Iife living with an mental illness. At times difficult, at times emotional, it made me think. It will stay with me long after I finished the last page.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! I really didn’t know what to expect from this book, before I dove in, but it surpassed my expectations. This book is about Alice an Indigenous woman who is dealing with being a new mother and the struggles that she faces. Alice is married to Steve, whom is not Indigenous, so he will never fully understand her childhood, upbringing or growing up on the Rez. Alice’ suffers from hallucinations/ psychosis, postpartum depression all while trying to fit into an everyday world she often doesn’t feel apart of. The struggles of being a new mother really push into a heartbreaking abyss. There are moments of supernatural, horror done just perfectly while dealing with such heavy relevant subjects.
Definitely recommend!
Thank you to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

DNF @ 50%. I let this percolate for a week and found I have no interest in going back to it. I'm not into books or characters where there are obvious mental health issues and they are brushed off. In this case, the main character being told she's just like her grandmother and not one person suggests maybe she should talk to a professional (she's talking to a fictional Pocohontas and that's "normal"??).

I wanted to love it and tried to push through, but I just can't do it

An impactful book. Alice could be considered an unreliable narrator as she battles with post-partum depression and her own belief that she is going crazy. Objects start talking to her, and it is hard to tell is this is real or perceived. If real, Alice is a reliable narrator, and the story is not at all what it appears. If she doesn't really see what she thinks is there, we have the best kind of unreliable narrator.

Either option is satisfying as a read (and I'm not going to spoil things and tell you which is the truth).

Woven throughout is the extra Mohawk creation story. I'd read an entire book in the voice Elliot uses for that story. It was saucy and full of strength and life.

All parts of this book are strong and well told. What a great addition to Canadian literature!

Once again, Alicia Elliot has woven together a spellbinding story. ‘And Then She Fell’ blurs the line between reality and visions of other in a way that makes you respect and feel viscerally every emotion that leads to the eventual ‘Fall’ of Alice, and what the Fall truly meant.
Struggling with the post partum effects of the birth of her daughter Dawn, Elliot makes it easy to see the spiral into some form of psychosis, or some other force at play, in the face of no sleep, the stress of a baby who won’t breastfeed, the unbearable weight of societies expectations of a new mom, and the systemic discrimination of being a First Nations woman on top of all of that, that is so egregious and yet ignored, or perceived as being ‘sensitive’ when trying to call it out for what it is.
The exhaustion of all that, in addition to still trying to exist as your own entity. Just the idea of trying to capture that in a work of fiction is daunting, and Alicia Elliot captured Alice’s journey in a way that was entirely relatable, empathetic, elegant, hopeful and beautiful. It wove in traditional storytelling, and the sense of belonging that comes in the times you feel most alone.
I was so excited to receive an ARC from NetGalley, and I am happy it met every expectation I had and more.

Thank you, NetGalley and the Publisher, for the opportunity to read the ARC. I found it raw and disturbing and did not finish, so will not be submitting a rating or review.
It is a powerful description of a Mohawk woman's descent into mental illness and deserves a wide and appreciative readership, but regret it wasn't for me.
She has married, left the reservation and moved to a white upscale neighbourhood in Toronto. A low feeling of self-worth is increased as she feels rejected by and suspicious of her white neighbours. She suffers from postpartum depression and has difficulty bonding with her new baby. It is a powerful description of her inner struggles and her descent into mental illness while trying to write a book retelling her nations" Creation story, passed on through generations of her people.
It is thought-provoking and addresses many important issues: Intergenerational trauma, racism, cultural appropriation, paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, exclusion, past history, and present conditions for indigenous women.

And Then She Fell follows Alice, a young Mohawk woman, as she grapples with the dissonance between her perceived ideal life and her internal struggles. Her inner turmoil, intensified by the loss of her mother and her challenge connecting with her newborn, Dawn, offers readers an intimate glimpse into the complexities of mental health, motherhood, and the weight of external societal expectations. Alice also grapples with balancing indigenous traditions and the contemporary world she finds herself in. A worthy read for those who appreciate novels that challenge perceptions and delve deep into the psyche of their protagonists.

Wow! I was surprised with how much I liked this one! Alicia Elliot has such an amazing voice and such a way with words I could've read another 100 pages of this. I loved the horror aspects and the real life aspects all just the same and I can't wait to read more of Elliot's work!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this e-ARC! This book was really really amazing - the description calls it “razor-sharp” and it is exactly that. Elliott is cutting in the ways she describes the multitude of violences inflicted onto Indigenous women, and the ways that these violences are interwoven into daily experiences and normalized. She writes beautifully about knowledge and community, about stories and legacy and family and love. The second act of this book is a stunning shift, which I loved to read, and I found I wasn’t ready to leave either act of this book behind. You feel Alice reaching for connection and understanding throughout, and you want to reach back and meet her there.

Parts of this story about a First Nations girl from the Six Nations reserve are a real gut punch but I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It tackles the tough topics that are current in Canada today; native stereotypes, white prejudice and mental illness and deals with them all in a frank and open manner.
Alice isn't always a likeable character nor are her husband and many of the other characters in the book, but they all tug at their heartstrings. Like most heroic characters in a tragedy, they are each deeply flawed but, in their own way, they're all trying to do their best.
An excellent book, particularly for anyone trying to understand Truth and Reconciliation on a human level.

For me this was a very difficult book to read. Yet, read it I did and the resulting emotions for having read it were overwhelming! So, the author Alicia Elliot accomplished (for me ) what all insightful ,raw , thought provoking books should accomplish! This was not a light read but an incredible book. Thank you Alicia for sharing.

And Then She Fell is about Alice, an Indigenous woman who’s struggling to balance motherhood and make progress in writing her people’s creation story. She’s also afflicted with mental health issues including hallucinations and delusions coupled with guilt over her mother’s recent death.

The first half of the book was decent and the author definitely has a gift for prose. Alice’s struggle as a new mother living in a predominantly white neighbourhood was relatable. But i started to get lost in the story by the midpoint and found the plot dragging especially as the creation story took over. It required effort to get into passages of Alice’s writing and her internal dialogue with little context was overwhelming. At that point, the story became too abstract for me as a reader.

My overall take is that this book has a lot of great ideas and discourse worth reading but the execution makes them inaccessible to the average reader.

Thank you NetGalley for a Kindle copy in exchange for an honest review.

On the surface, Alice's life would be considered idyllic. New baby, a dedicated husband, and a move to an affluent neighbourhood in Toronto from the Six Nations rez where she grew up.

Alice's past however is dark, and that darkness is coming to add a level of difficulty far past the initial struggles of motherhood. Alice is having a difficult time managing her baby all on her own, as her husband angles for a tenure role and insists that the child-rearing be done by Alice without any additional help. She is also working to establish herself as an author, writing a modern retelling of the creation story.

The novel chronicles motherhood in juxtaposition to the difficulties of changing identity in combination with past trauma and mental health issues. The first half will grip you as you learn about Alice's past, and begin her descent into a mentally unstable place. The second could be for you, or not. It really depends.

I found the second half jumpy sometimes making it difficult to follow along, however that is likely the point the author seeks to make. The more unstable the mind, the more unstable the narrative. Other review mention struggling to understand what was real and not. I feel that's the whole intention :)

Many trigger warning should go into this: including abuse, substance abuse, mental illness, sexism, racism, and cultural appropriation.

This was a intricately woven indigenous story that deals with, racism, trauma, addiction, mental health, postpartum depression, with a touch of supernatural thrown in. You don’t know if the MC is going crazy or if things are real. Loved how this book is told, loved the writing style, could not put the book down. We need more from this kickass Canadian author.

If you enjoy an amazing indigenous story, look no further and but this book. I myself have pre ordered it from indigo.

Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Random house, and the author for an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

4.5/5 stars, rounded up.

This was an intense and creepy read. As a new mom, I could relate to some of Alice's experiences, minus the racism, magic, and mental illness. I liked the unreliable narrator aspect of this novel - you could never quite tell what was in Alice's mind and what was real, even by the time the novel ended.

I loved Alicia Elliott's first book, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, so I was happy to find that her second did not disappoint.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for my ARC. This was an emotional read that made me think. If you would like even a glimpse of what it feels like to live with a mental illness this is the book for you. It will make you feel all the things.

One of the most beautifully written stories about racism, sanity & motherhood. I couldn’t decide if Alice was suffering from psychosis or if she was really in danger for most of the story. The story carried me through stages of denial & acceptance as I grieved with Alice for the loss she’s suffered. I absolutely loved reading this exploration of human pain and trauma. What does ‘genocide’ mean when you have to survive it? What does ‘genocide’ mean when you still have to face the descendent of the ones perpetrating it throughout the history while they realize their own truth? What is your truth?

* I got a free copy of the book from NetGalley. I’d say I was very fortunate to read this book so early on but I am disappointed that the publisher couldn’t be bothered to provide an Epub/AZW3/Mobi/ Whatever-your-typical-ebook-reader-reads version & only released the book in pdf. It was confusing & frustrating to navigate the story & hope that the random numbers popping up in the middle of the paragraphs were due to the incompatibility of the book and my kindle. It was also a testament to the strength of this story & the author & that I never even considered stopping despite the insurmountable frustration & chalked it up to another microaggression Alice had to live through to tell her story.