ALL THESE THINGS I'VE DONE - REVIEW - GABRIELLE ZEVIN

Book: All these things i've done

Author: Gabrielle Zevin

Publisher: PanMacmillan

ISBN: 9780330537896

Rating: A

Sixteen year-old Anya becomes the head of a mafia family after her parents are both murdered by rival gangs. Although Anya is embrolied in the criminal world, she is determined to keep her brother and sister out of the mafia family, but her father's relatives aren't so keen to let them go. When Anya's violent ex-boyfriend is poisoned with contaminated chocolate – chocolate that is produced illegally by Anya's mafia family – she is arrested for attempted murder and sent to the notorious jail on Manhattan Island.  Eventually she is freed by the new D.A. in town, who believs she has been framed. But this D.A. is the father of Win, a boy at school to whom Anya feels irresistibly drawn, and her freedom comes with conditions. Win's father wants to be mayor, and he can't risk having his ambition jeopardised by rumours spreading that his son is seeing a member of a notorious crime family. Anya knows she risks the safety of her family by seeing Win again, but the feeling between them may be too strong to resist..

Elsewhere is one of those books you hear so much about, I just never got around to reading it so when this popped through the letterbox I decided I would gobble down Zevin's new novel and I really really enjoyed it. It's one of these book where it takes half the novel to get to the point it says on the blurb but you don't really care because the beginning is amazing anyway. I suppose if i were to describe it, it would be 'a Dystopian Mafia Love story with a twist'. No, but honestly the book was a spectacular read. I loved it to the very last word.

It follows Anya, a girl accused of poisoning her ex boyfriend with spiked chocolate, and then the novel commences. The type of novel and the world it is set in along with the type of characters is fantastically unique and I don't think you'll find a thing like it anywhere! A masterpiece? I have no doubt.

The plot is the most unique one I have ever read and to be honest I absolutely loved it! The world it's set it is so kind of silly yet Zevin makes it so real and acceptable, to have a world where chocolate is illegal and caffeine is a drug, and you know what? She makes it work. She twines the mixture of dystopian wonder to create an intoxicating novel.

The writing is something i haven't quite experienced before and for me it was quite weird but the moment my mind adjusted I instantly fell in love with it, from the edgy prose to the deep emotional dialogue, It was all just so wonderful. The detail in the text and those little words that juts make your heart break. As for the scenes, the one at the end... blew me away.

The characters are set to a small few which is always nice when being introduced to a new series so you can get to know them as well as the world around you without lots of characters to make you confused. Also having the same ones means you learn about them in more detail, and almost befriend which i love to do to characters. As for my favorite it is Leo her older brother, because he is so sweet and innocent and you can see him struggling to fight this mental block and it just breaks your heart when he becomes a 'wanted dead' person when he was just trying to help and support his parent-less family.

Zevin is a god in herself, for creating a book so amazing and so brilliant. I loved the deep sodt undertones of the edgy surface of this truly, amazing, novel.