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How We Fall Apart
By JK Sooja,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Teen dies, selfish students cover up in flawed thriller.
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What's the Story?
In HOW WE FALL APART, Nancy Luo is a smart Chinese American teen girl, lucky to be enrolled at an elite private high school on New York's Upper West Side, said to be the most prestigious prep school in the nation. All her friends are super rich and super important. At school, her best friend Jamie, who's also Chinese American, is the most popular. Until she turns up dead. Who did it? Does Nancy know? All that's for sure, is that lots of kids know more than they are letting on.
Is It Any Good?
The structure of this thriller provides a decent platform for revealing secrets, but most of the thrills are shallow. And the mystery Gossip Girl-like social media plot driver seems a bit too familiar. The character development in How We Fall Apart is thin, too. The cast is diverse, but there's no theme or thread that involves race, gender, sexuality, or class on a deep level. There's just one very brief scene of someone confronting racist behavior.
Most troubling, however, is how the novel depicts the inappropriate student-teacher relationship between Nancy and Peter. Every time Peter is mentioned, thought about, or remembered, Nancy slips into a kind of, "well, he's so hot, so it is all justified" trance. There are no consequences or self-awareness on the part of Nancy, and the only reason she stops being involved with Peter is because he doesn't come through when she needs him, not because the nature of the relationship is inappropriate for many reasons or because Peter is a creepy older man trying to have an illegal sexual relationship with a 16-year-old.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about inappropriate relationships. How does How We Fall Apart depict the student-teacher relationship? What could the novel have done more to be clear that much more was wrong about the nature of that relationship? Why do you think this wasn't done?
Discuss the idea of a murder mystery in a high school young adult novel. Did you think this kind of idea was done well here? Why or why not?
Why do you think the author made Nancy come from a "poor, immigrant" family? Why do you think Jamie's background was so rich?
Book Details
- Author: Katie Zhao
- Genre: School
- Topics: High School
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
- Publication date: August 17, 2021
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 14 - 18
- Number of pages: 352
- Available on: Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, Kindle
- Last updated: September 28, 2021
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.
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Where to Read
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