Due to the fact that I completely messed up my sleep schedule and have gone back to being a night owl, I was able to start this read-a-thon about 15 minutes after midnight. Literally there was not a tired bone in my body so I chose my first book, All Fall Down by Ally Carter and immediately started reading.

All Fall Down is a young adult mystery about a girl who is trying to find out who murdered her mother. Grace witnessed her mother being murdered when she was 13 but no one believes her and writes her mother’s death off as an accident. There is a political aspect to this book as Grace is the granddaughter of the U.S. ambassador and lives in the U.S. embassy situated in the foreign country of Adria. Struggling with the murder of her mother, Grace tries to acclimate to living at the embassy and within this highly political world of Embassy Row.

This book fulfills the challenge of reading a book with blue on the cover and even though it is the 4th challenge listed out of 7, I chose it purely based on the fact that it was first book if I were to list the books alphabetically by their title. Obviously, that was the librarian part of me despite the fact that I alphabetized by title and not by the author’s Last name. That, and the fact that my lucky number is also 4.

I read off and on for about 3 hours and got to page 95 before my eyes finally started to get tired. The first few pages drew me in but after that I had a hard time connecting to the story a little. Grace is very complex switching between being snarky and independent to being meek and depressed. Obviously what she has gone through has something to do with it but I just had a hard time understanding her.

The story did pick up though with the introduction of Alexei and Noah which I am guessing are the possible two love interests for Grace even though Noah is giving me vibes of being more of a friend to Grace like Simon is to Clary in the Mortal Instrument books. Alexei is definitely someone I could see being Grace’s love interest. He is Grace’s older brother’s best friend so he knows her and cares for her plus he is Russian which makes him a little bit more appealing in my book lol.

For the rest of the day, I didn’t get much reading done and only got to participate in one of the reading sprints being hosted via Twitter but I managed to read 45 more pages. I am definitely into the story more than in the beginning especially after seeing how much witnessing her mother’s murder affects Grace. Even though her grandfather and Ms. Chancellor, who works for her grandfather are telling her that she needs to let go and move on, Grace is determined to figure out who murdered her mother. She gets help from Noah which again just confirms the “Simon” vibes I had early and I’m excited to see how the story continues.

With the first day coming to an end, I spend the last hour reading and manage to read another 40 pages bring me to page 180 in the book. The story has definitely gotten better, the plot reaching a mini-climax that I was not really expecting. Grace is still grappling with the aftermath of her mother’s murder but as she hunts down the killer the story has its light hearted moments and I am really enjoying it. The mystery aspect of the book is in full swing and I am excited to see what will happen next.If I had to rate this book at this point in time I would give it 3.5/5 stars.