Review // All Fall Down

All Fall Down by Ally Carter
Pages: 320
Published: January 20, 2015
Genre(s): YA, Spy Thriller, Mystery
Cover Rating: ★★ (Eh. Not too crazy about this one. Love the type treatment though.)

Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things: 1. She is not crazy. 2. Her mother was murdered. 3. Someday she is going to find the killer and make him pay.

As certain as she is about these facts, nobody else believes her -- so there's no one she can completely trust. Her past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn't stop it, Grace isn't the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down.

~~~

It was really interesting seeing espionage from a different standpoint than the Gallagher Girls and Heist Society series. Those people are pros. They know exactly what they're doing, why they're doing it, and when they're doing it. (I recommend those books by the way. The Gallagher Girls books especially are some of my favorite books ever.) 

Grace kind of knows what she's doing and kind of doesn't. Yeah, she knows a trick or two from her military dad but she doesn't know everything. Which was a refreshing point of view. I really liked how I got to see more into "embassy life" too! It was fun reading about all the different nationalities and how they had to be careful not to overstep boundaries or work around national tensions. 

On the other hand, I felt like too much energy was devoted to telling the reader about Grace and her "craziness" and her struggles so the background scenes and characters were neglected. 

It took a while for things to get going. The important, big things didn't start to happen until probably half way through the book (or at least it felt that way). However, the mysterious/plotting side of the story was pretty fabulous. It's one of Ally Carter's great strengths and she proved herself yet again with this one. 

In conclusion, to me it was the kind of book where you have to give it a chance and maybe wait a little while to be wowed. 

You guys know that characters are usually my favorite part of books.

Aaaaaand... I didn't love the characters in this book as much or as quickly as in other ally carter books. It just didn't work for me as well. Grace came across to me as pretty bratty at first. I did like a few other characters right away but they weren't as developed as they could be. 

Also the whole Alexei situation was kind of weird. 

It might be said that these kinds of books need the "dark, brooding" male character (not said by me though). It felt like he only existed for this sole purpose. For certain dramatic guy-girl scenes and then for the rest of the time he was out of the picture. Eh. It didn't make sense to me. 

I'm really really hoping for more relationship development (friendship relationship) in the next book because the friendships in this book are really promising. I'm so thankful that when I thought the author was bringing in a love interest he wasn't. He was just a friend, which is great. We need more of that. 

I was also super impressed by how the author wrote for Grace's character. Is she crazy? Is she not? I CAN'T TELL. It drove me crazy. My point is though--I was impressed and learned a bit more about how the human mind works.

P.S. That ending though! Stick it out and be awed. 

My Rating:

✰✰✰✰

Disclaimer: I was not reimbursed for this review in any way. All opinions or thoughts expressed are my own.