Review: All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin

Book: All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin
Pages: 368 Pages
Release Date: September 6th, 2011
Publisher: Farrar Straus and Giroux
Source: Publisher

Synopsis:
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 accidentally 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.

My Thoughts:

Let me start out with saying that I liked this book so much that I dreamed about it. Yup.

All These Things I’ve Done was a great dystopian novel and it was interesting how the author made having chocolate and caffeine illegal in this book sound realistic. For example, selling chocolate was like selling an illegal drug and to people, chocolate was a drug and they actually got “high” off it.

Anya Balachine is my new fictional hero. She was really smart and didn’t care about money or the family business; what she cared about was her family…oh and her new boyfriend.  Win Delecroix is my new fictional boyfriend. He was perfect in this book (and not that fake perfect way, I mean perfect in the “kind of guy all girls want, but only a few get” way.) Together, they are my new favorite couple.

The one thing I didn’t like about this book that I couldn’t really connect with the characters. It was mostly with Anya’s family. I could read about her talking to them and telling about them, but I  couldn’t hear her. Do you get what I mean?

All in all, I really liked this book and I think I’m going to have to read some more dystopian books. Anya’s story is an exciting one and you should read it!