All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin
pages: 354
released: September 2011
publisher: FS&G
cover love: ♥♥♥♥

In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed, and New York City is rife with crime and poverty. And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city’s most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and her dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.’s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend. That is until her ex is accidently poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she’s to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight–at school, in the news, and most importantly, within her mafia family. (from Goodreads)

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 9/25/2012 ON BOOKSLIKESTARS.NET

Review:

Going into All These Things I’ve Done, I didn’t really know what to expect from it. All I knew was that it had to do with a teenage girl and her ties to the mafia in the future New York City. I thought it could be a new dystopian series following the likes of Divergent or Enclave but was surprised to find it more on the contemporary side. This was the author’s first attempt at writing a series and in an interview she explains that she wanted to write one that “if you put all the books together at the end, you would have a planned narrative that made sense from page one to page twelve hundred.”

I was overly impressed with the setting the author built for Anya and the other characters to live in. Most dystopian books I’ve read are set in a world that has become completely desolate or has embraced futuristic technology on a whole new level and everyone lives within a perfect, sterile environment. New York City in ATTID bends on a somewhat more realistic curve that could very well happen if our economy continues to take a nose dive. Set in 2083, the city that never sleeps has curfews, rations, water limits and vouchers for hair care products, candles and other everyday items so common on today’s drugstore shelves. Museums that Manhattan is famous for stand empty and crumbling; some used for night club entertainment. It is illegal to consume caffeine and other stimulants (bye bye coffee and Red Bull), which causes such sweets as chocolate to be on the black market and heavily supported by organized crime. Anya Balanchine, our narrator, is the daughter of the former biggest mobster in the city. Since her father’s death, Anya has filled his shoes and tries to provide a stable family life at home for her younger sister and older brother who has a mental disability. Her grandmother is their guardian but she’s incapacitated and much of the family’s problems are pinned on Anya. When her ex-boyfriend is poisoned by a chocolate bar from her father’s company, the scale that has kept her and her family so perfectly balanced completely tips. She’s arrested and sent to Liberty Island (Miss Liberty is no more). But her arrest is just the beginning of her problems. When she’s released, she has to deal with the consequences of the poisoning, the media, her mafia relatives and trying to keep her brother out of their hands plus the hardest thing of all: pretending she’s not falling in love with the assistant D.A.’s son, Win.

There were so many things I loved about this book. Some contemporary books are slow paced or revolve around a single problem in its plot. With ATTID, there’s always something going on yet it wasn’t your average lightning speed mystery. It had it’s own pace which makes its reader feel comfortable and not bored at the same time. As you can see from my little summary, Anya deals with a lot. And I didn’t even include everything because of spoilers. At some points while reading, I thought to myself, damn, can’t this girl catch a break. But I guess if she did the story wouldn’t have been that interesting. Anya is a devoted sister and friend but can seem stoic. She’s used to being in control of everything and can come off as the hard nut to crack. She is one of the most realistic characters I’ve ever come across. Win was the sweetest guy for her, always the optimist in their star-crossed relationship. In addition to Anya and Win, her mafia family kept me turning those pages. As we’ve all seen on the Sopranos and in mob movies, there’s a lot of shit that can go down (and does) so Gabrielle Zevin was smart to use this force within her novel. It definitely kept me interested as I’ve always enjoyed that sort of thing (blame it on my Italian roots).

In short, All These Things I’ve Done was fantastic. It’s edgy, compelling and has a strong, fierce heroine. It revolves around teens, politics, economic struggle, love, family, organized crime, religion and of course, chocolate. This is the first book I’ve read by the author and it’s sure not to be the last. As soon as I was done, I dipped into Because It Is My Blood.

4.5