We All Fall Down book review

We All Fall Down, by Natalie D. Richards, is a story about two friends in their fight against the events of their past as they struggle to mend their friendship.

Seniors in high school, Paige and Theo, have been friends for as long as they can remember. That is until the night of the party. When Theo and Paige attend a high school party on the boat docks, under the infamous town bridge, everything goes awry.

This is the night Theo plans on revealing his true feelings for Paige when he finds out that the feeling mutual. As the night continues and the amount of drinks increase, the tension between Theo, Paige and other party goers continues to build.

When Paige starts getting close to Chase, a fellow classmate, Theo’s jealousy takes over and causes a fight. Theo attempts to punch Chase when Paige tries to break them up causing Theo to accidentally punch Paige in the face, knocking out her teeth and breaking their whole friendship.

Paige and Theo are haunted by events of that night and continually find themselves drawn back to the bridge. As they try to discover how to stop the hauntings and negative memories, they simultaneously battle to piece their friendship back together.

Before becoming a young adult author, Natalie Richards used to write business documents until she had a change of heart and now is an author, school speaker and also a speaker at writing groups. Natalie currently lives in Ohio with her husband, kids and dogs. She’s the author of five books including We All Fall Down, One Was Lost, Six Months Later, Gone Too Far, and My Secret To Tell.

Personally, I did not love the book because I could never get into it. I never found myself engulfed in the novel or determined to know what happened. It was kind of a slow read, but I feel like if I had more time to read the book in one sitting I would have enjoyed it a little more. I read the book a little bit at a time and didn’t get the chance to sit and focus for a good amount of time. There was nothing wrong with the author’s writing or style, I just found myself struggling to get into the novel.

Also, the back cover summary of the book does not fully represent

what the book is actually about. Specifically, I thought that Paige and Theo were being haunted symbolically, but they were actually being haunted and majority of the novel was about them trying to uncover the reason behind the hauntings and how to put a stop to it.

Perhaps, if the summary had been more clear then I would have liked the book more because I would have had a better idea about what I was getting into. Overall, the book was good, well written and had a good plot, but I can’t say it was one of my favorites.