All Fall Down

Ally Carter has done it again in making a world of intrigue and deception. Unlike The Heist Society, though, All Fall Down is set at the international embassy in Adria. Here all of the world's embassy's live on the same street. Russia, Iran, Israel, and the USA bumping elbows and sharing the same paperboy can become rather hostile when someone sneezes in the wrong direction. One wrong move and it all falls down into WWIII.

But Grace has her own problems. Still trying to cope with her mother's death, she tries to be normal. She returns to the embassy where her grandfather resides as ambassador and where she spent many of the summers of her childhood. But she's not "normal," she's not "fine." Grace sees monsters everywhere still and conspiracy runs in every gutter. She feels like she can't trust anyone and for good reason.

The thing I like most about this book is how our narrator is unreliable. There have been few books where we are given an unreliable narrator and where you question, more than once, if she is actually sane. Grace has PTSD after seeing her mother murdered by a Scarred Man, but that is all she has to go on. Doctors and family say it was "an accident" "an accident" "an accident," but Grace knows that it's more than that. And more importantly she knows she's not crazy. But I came to times when trying to take the foreshadowed events and question if she really was crazy. Grace reminded me of Kat, from Heist Society, as the go-get-em kind of girl. The girl that would skulk into a secret tunnel after whom she thinks is the bad guy. (Do not try this at home.) She was different than most; the PTSD hangs over her heavily and I'm interested to see how much more she changes in the rest of the series.

I did like the world that Ally Carter set up. Making a new country, one neutral ground so then no one's toes were being stepped on was smart. I liked that Adria is a traditionalist place where balls can happen. It gave it that fantasy feel, at least for a bit, that I like. Making Grace feel like a princess in froofy dresses even though she actually feels like a penguin on stilts. I like that the kids on Embassy Row are really just that, kids. Letting crushes grow while others simply want to find a friend--all the while trying to not start an international crisis.

The writing itself is well done, though set for a mid-YA audience. For an easy, action book, this is what you'd want to read. If I had been dedicated and not sick for the last month and surrounded by crazy life, I could have finished it within two or three days.

I do want to see more of Grace and the other kids. Rosie was pretty cute and Megan's computer skills were pretty awesome, but I want more from them. I don't want the kind of romance Ally had in other books. I want more than just another Simon or Bagshaw brothers; they are great, but they had their book. I hope Grace and Alexei, Rosie and Noah have their own moments of awesomeness and that it's not just a reprise of Heist Society, good though it was. I want more, new awesomeness and I think I'm going to get it.