Customer Reviews

All Fall Down

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved All Fall Down as much as I enjoyed Ms. Hart's other work of fiction, Precious and Fragile Things. The author is known for her hot romances and her horror stories. I think her fiction stories are just as powerful. All Fall Down isn't a romance but it isn't any less emotional.

All Fall Down grabs your attention from the start. In the beginning you can't believe anyone would allow themselves to be brainwashed by a cult. By the end of the book you realize that not all of the teachings are crazy. Seeing things from Sunny's perspective helps the reader understand how the "normal" world is just as insane. I can't recommend this book enough. If you haven't read Megan Hart's books before I will tell you now: They make you THINK. The stories are complex and emotional. My heart broke for Sunny so many times. I was rooting for her and the entire family through the whole book.

Sunshine's Mama sends her nineteen years old daughter and her three grandchildren (Peace, Bliss and Happy) away from the Family of Superior Bliss compound. Mama tells Sunny to go to her real biological father, as the teen learns John Superior is not.

Sunny and her three preschoolers arrive at the home of Christopher Albright. He wants nothing to do with a daughter or his grandchildren who he never knew he had; but his wife Liesel welcomes the foursome into their home. Already in shock with the revelations, Sunny is despondent to learn everyone at the Family of Superior Bliss compound including Mama committed suicide.

This is an engaging look at a cult from the perspective of someone who escaped but quickly realizes she will never fully escape mentally. Character driven, readers will root for this "family" to make it but Sunny's adjustment issues are overwhelming having spent almost two decades with a truth that proved false. Although a deeper look at the thought processes of Sunny, her oldest four years old child, and her father would have been enlightening, fans will relish this family drama.

Harriet Klausner

I was very intrigued by the subject of this book, because there are a lot of emotional things going on at once. You have Liesel's quest to have a baby, the appearance of a child form her husband's first marriage, becoming grandparents, and recovering from years of mental and physical abuse. That sounds like it would make for a very depressing novel, but All Fall Down isn't that at all. Liesel is forced to confront her feelings about her possible infertility while trying to engage her husband who is reeling from the discovery that he had a daughter all this time. Sunny is trying desperately to fit into a world that she was taught to avoid and even hate. Despite all of that, everyone has something to teach the other.

Most importantly, Sunny's upbringing and ideas aren't painted as totally wrong or evil. While the abuse was certainly disturbing, some of her other ideas weren't completely off base, and it's that coming together of worlds and lifestyles that makes this book work so well. As a reader, you got to watch both Liesel and Sunny grow into new people. It was emotional from beginning to end and I was never quite sure what would happen, which also made it quite suspenseful. I love bittersweet endings, and this book certainly had that. Overall, it was a book that took a more than one difficult subject and made them work inside a new and endearingly inexperienced family.

I gave up on romance novels 50 years ago, but I love Megan Hart's work! I find them in book review newsletters and always love them. This "true fiction" tale of escape from a cult and family life rings true on many levels. Sunshine and her kids arrive at her father's, Chris Albright, door without him even knowing she existed. His wife Liesl has wanted a family and was about to accept she is barren. Suddenly there is a ready made family. Lots of tension with Sunny trying to fit into life with the "blemished" and the Albrights trying to cope. Good character development, lots of tension, and a realistic ending that does not tie everything up with a "big red bow"!

Megan Hart, known best by her fans for an emotionally gripping ride with each story she writes, has done it again. All Fall Down is flawed and gritty. Sunny feels like she could be your neighbor or the girl you know that works in your favorite coffee shop. Liesel and Christopher's relationship comes full circle giving the reader a look into a marriage that is filled with love and overdue healing. My heart broke then sang for all of her characters. I can't wait to see what Megan Hart comes up with next.

Reviewed by Francesca(Under the Covers Book Blog)

Thought provoking life story. All Fall Down is not your typical Megan Hart book. At least not so much what I'm used to reading from her, although I know she started out writing this type of fiction. However, it's one of those books that you want to stop reading but you can't put it down.

Extremely well written, it tells us the story of Sunshine. She's 19 years old and has three kids, Happy, Bliss and Peace. Sunny was raised in what you would normally call a cult house. Her mother had left her father to join this "religion" and that's all Sunny has known her whole life.

Until one day her mom makes her run away from the house with her three kids and go find her father. This right before everyone in this cult house commits mass suicide. She is now at the mercy of a father who didn't know about her and who has remarried.

Liesel, his new wife, has always wanted children. Now this seems like a gift that she gets to have 3 little ones to care for. The struggles that every character in this book goes through are deep and heartbreaking. Sunny, living in the world with the blemished. Liesel being a mother. Christopher dealing with a daughter that reminds him of the woman he once loved and left him. Some of them a bit traumatic. Some of them tender.

No happy ending for this story. Maybe a hope it can get better at some point ending. That was the only part I wasn't too happy with in this story, but in a way, it's the only realistic ending for someone that has been through what Sunny has.

"All Fall Down" by Megan Hart is a very unique book - very different from most books I usually read. But I really enjoyed reading it! The book is about a girl named Sunshine, who is raised in a cult, and is forced by her mother to escape (along with her 3 small children) the cult and go to her real father (who she never met.) Liesel (the wife of Sunshine's father, Chris) always dreamed of having a family - but Chris says he doesn't want children. When Sunshine and her children show up at Liesel and Chris' doorstep, everyone's life changes drastically.
I found the book to be very interesting and hard to put down. It was written in a way that you really felt that you could relate to Sunshine, and understand how hard it was for her to adjust to "real life" outside of the cult. In the same way, you could really relate to Liesel, and understand her feelings - from shock and anger at finding out about her husband's child, to forgiveness, and joy and love.
This book really brings your attention to the radical cult lifestyle - and makes you really think about what it would be like to be raised in a cult setting {think Kool-Aid drinking type cult}.
I felt the ending was a little bit of a "cliff-hanger", maybe the author could write another book continuing this story - I would definitely read it!!
Overall, I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars - the book was enjoyable to read, a little "creepy" at some parts (when it described some of the details of cult life), but I would recommend that you read this book.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received an e-book edition of this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

4 STARS
My emotions were all over the place with this story. I think because I know it happens all the time, or at least most of the story.
Sunny is a teenage mother of three in a cult that she has been raised in. Her mother wakes her and her children and tells hers she has to take the kids now . Her mom has packed two backpacks, gave her some money and tells her her real dad just lives a little away. To take around the back fence their is a whole in the fence and not look back.
At the same time their are lots of sirens and recording of the father calling them all to the chapel. Sunny does not know why her mom wants her to disobey and runnaway with her children. Sunny has been raised to obey or your punshed.
Sunny shows up at her father's door with three young children in thin and worn out clothes. Liesel is married to Christopher. Liesel badly wants to be a mother but Christopher does not ever want children. Liesel is not having any luck getting pregnant and right now she found out again that she is not. When Sunny shows up. Christopher has not told Liesel that he did have a child with first wife or at least a possible child.
Sunny has different beliefs and traditions from always living her life in the cult. When they find out that all hundred of the people in the compound have committed sucide. Sunny thinks she must be bad for her mother not to want her to go through the gate by drinking the rainbow punch. They have practiced many times to take the punch that might kill them so they can leave their vessels and go through the gate. The other times when it was just practice they did not know if it would be real or practice till it was over. They were told that the reason was some of them were not worthy and any to confess or report on others who might be at fault.
Too see what life that Sunny lived is hard to take. The abuse physical ,emotional and sexual everything her whole life is sad. How she teaches the same thing or starts to with her young children. I had a hard time reading this book, because of the subject matter it is too believeable and well told story. I was given this ebook to read in exchange for honest review by Netgalley.