Book Review by Aarene Storms: All These Things I've Done

By Aarene Storms, 

Youth Services Librarian

Richmond Beach Library, KCLS

All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin

16-year-old Anya is the heir to to the "family business": chocolate.

In the year 2083, chocolate is a controlled substance, and Anya's family is a modern mafia, importing chocolate and other prohibited luxuries to New York. Her parents were both killed in mob hits, leaving Anya in charge of a younger sister, a brain-injured older brother, and a dying grandmother. Anya considers herself the least romantic girl in the world...until she falls in love with Win Delacroix, the son of New York's new assistant DA.

Then Anya's ex-boyfriend nearly dies from eating a poisoned bar of Balanchine Chocolate, and the story begins to twist and turn and twist again.

Crime, drama, chocolate, forbidden romance...and this is only the first book! At least two more in the Birthright series are already in the works.

This book contains some sexual situations (including a steamy "near miss" scene in a hotel room) with no actual body parts on the page. There is no cussing, some not-very-bloody mob violence, and several scenes of alcohol consumption by teens; in 2083, alcohol is legal for all ages, but coffee is not.

Recommended for ages 14 to adult.

The events may not have happened; still, the story is true. --R. Silvern