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All The Pretty Things by Emily Arsenault

"Though the big reveal at the end was gut wrenching and horrifying, I felt it took far too long for the author to actually get to that big reveal and the lead up to it was a bit too long winded for my taste."

3 Stars. 

Pros: The twist at the end blew me away. 

Cons: The fact that the twist took so damned long to actually be brought to light was immensely frustrating/Ivy is a bit of a busy body and her constant questions get annoying. 

Full Review: 

After returning from a trip to visit family out of state, Ivy is met with pandemonium. Her best friend, Morgan, was the one to discover the body of Ethan Lavoie, a local boy who worked at Fabuland, who apparently fell off a bridge to his death while walking home late one night. Half of the teenage/young adult population of Danville, New Hampshire works at Fabuland and the death of Ethan, a much loved boy who had Down Syndrome, but that doesn't define him, has rocked the entire town. 

Fabuland is a small time amusement park that's run by Ivy's Father, who also runs a chain of Doughnut shops. Ivy is his right hand woman and he constantly lets her know how much he trusts her and how much he relies on her. This is all rather new to her, as her brother, who's now attending Syracuse, used to be her fathers right hand, but has since decided to stay away from the summer. It isn't until much later in the novel, that we learn why. 

At first, Ivy starts digging into the possibilities of Ethan's death because of the affect it's had on Morgan. The day after Ivy comes home, Morgan is found at the top of the Ferris Wheel and will speak to no one but Ivy. She manages to talk her friend down, who then goes to the hospital and is tight lipped on everything and anything when Ivy tries to get her to open up. There's also the mystery of the sparkly blue scorpion paperweight that Morgan found on the path a few feet away from Ethan's body, to figure out. Ivy takes this all on as a way to try and make things right and figure out what happened because all she really wants is her friend, Morgan back. 

Unfortunately, sometimes the truth is horrifically ugly and Ivy learns that the hard way. The reader also does too. I wasn't expecting the twist, in fact, I was waiting for 300 pages for something to even happen but when it did, suffice it to say, I was floored. Arsenault does a good job keeping you interested, giving you bits and pieces of possible clues but for the book to drag onto 300+ pages, in the end it felt far too long winded. I enjoyed it but at the same time, I struggled with whether or not I wanted to continue reading because not much happens and it's easy to lose interest. You continue reading in the hopes of a big reveal and Arsenault definitely left that big reveal to the end.

This wasn't a great book but it wasn't terrible either. It was hard hitting and painful at times, forcing Ivy to take those rose colored glasses off and see the world for how it truly is but that's good for young adults to learn. Life is not all sunshine and roses and the quicker you learn that, the easier it will be to push through the hard parts. 

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