A review by elenahasashelf
And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott

challenging emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is so incredibly hard to rate because I was slow to get into it, had mixed feelings most of the way through, and by the end

I was moved to tears.

This is really not the story you think it’s going to be! It reminded me a lot of Bad Cree, as a horror story that ends kind of hopefully, that’s really a story about family and chosen family and grief and guilt. I found the ending impossible to put down and incredibly powerful. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time. Having said that, the transition in tone and perspective was jarring. On the one hand I was in awe as the world grew bigger - and on the other I was like…why did we just go through everything we did in the middle then?!

The bulk of the novel definitely planted good seeds, built up the tension and gave me a thorough understanding of who Alice is. Her voice is distinct in a way that I find lots of other narrator voices aren’t. I did find myself getting a little bored by the more everyday mundane passages, but once I picked the book back up after an initial lull I didn’t want to put it back down. 

I loved the way mental health is treated by the ending - the way that Alice finds her experiences honoured by Eden, even the ones that are brought on by her psychosis. It brought me to tears thinking about mental health in my circles, and what it must be like not to be believed for a whole of your experiences - especially as a marginalized person. It makes you question your own reading of the bulk of the book - does it matter how unreliable Alice’s narration is? Is the hard truth of events what matters to this story? 

The overall message about finding meaning and persistence in each other was so powerful. We don’t see much of Alice’s cousins throughout but we always sense how important they are and I’m glad they were important to the ending.

Reading the acknowledgements and seeing that this went from short story to novel checks out - I think it could have been a strong novella. The same points

and twists

could have been delivered in a tighter way.

The emphasis on being a fish out of water in the city was so much the focus for so long, and didn’t end up being the main thing to pay off? Which on the one hand effectively threw me for a loop! And definitely added depth to Alice and her perspective. But I don’t think we needed that amount of focus on it! Though I do truly think that my opinion on this as a white reader is probably quite limited, and that could have been one of the more resonant points for Indigenous readers.