Book: All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle ZevinGenre: YA Dystopian
Rating: B+
For: Fun
From: I won this one during Armchair BEA! Yeah, cool.
The thing I especially enjoyed about this dystopian story was that is set in just the distant future instead of the far far future (which many of these stories seem to be) and thus things still felt familiar, yet not. It felt like a world that really could be possible. It's a world where there's still the things we have today and the city (New York) we have today, but there are shortages on everything. Paper (thus books have stopped being printed) and water (it costs money to take a shower) and fresh fruit (back to the days when oranges were a special Christmas treat) etc. Email has postage and phones calls are a rarity, not mention that chocolate and caffeine are illegal.
Anya lives in this world, taking care of her brother and sister and also her ailing grandma (born in 1995 and remembers the good old days!) Her family, who manufactures chocolate, is part of the mafia and her parents have been killed for their involvement. All this makes for some interesting situations for her and she has to grow up way too fast. Meanwhile, she's dealing with the new guy at school (have you ever wondered why the guy is always new?) and her friend situation, and her ex-boyfriend and all sorts of normal teenage drama. It gets a little crazy!
So I enjoyed this story, it read very quickly and was very engaging. Somewhere just past half way through, though, I felt like it was all over the place, and needed to settle down onto one issue. Some of that stuff is resolved, but for the most part, it's all left hanging and so I'm assuming there's sequels to come. (I have no idea and I'm too lazy to look it up!)
Bottom line: I enjoyed it, but it didn't blow me away or anything.
Other Reviews:
Waking Brain Cells
Steph Su Reads
Book Nerd Reviews
Good Books and Good Wine
Wow, another one that wasn't "great" Am I rubbing off on you, or are you just in a bit of a slump? ;) I still want to read this one.
ReplyDeleteI have always been curious about this author, but I haven't read anything yet.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably the best book I have ever read. I love how suspenseful it gets! I love all the drama!! I love everything it's so unexplainable just so so so much I love everything about it! I finished it it 4 days, surprisingly I have to return it on the 15 of October. But ummm I may reread it again since I love the book so much!! I do hope there are sequels to come! Oh the first paragraph of the story got me to say "I am checking this book out of the library!"
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