All The Pretty Things

“…exhausted by all the things I knew, and all that my lucky life now demanded of me.”

Brief Synopsis:

Ivy comes back from visiting her grandmother in North Carolina to a world of chaos. Her best friend, Morgan, seems to be missing following a few days of devastation at her job at Fabuland. Fabuland is the town’s fun park, which was recently purchased from the previous owner by Ivy’s chauvinistic father. There’s a shortcut, a pathway, that all of the locals take from their neighborhoods to Fabuland. One day while walking to work, Morgan finds the body of one of their coworkers, Ethan. First appearances would show that Ethan fell off the trestle, and that’s how he died. Ethan was beloved by all, a fellow Fabuland worker that had down syndrome. However, when Morgan is located sitting by herself on top of the ferris wheel, and won’t get down until Ivy, who’s afraid of heights, goes to talk to her, she has some weird and chilling things to say about Ethan.

Morgan’s taken to the hospital for a psych evaluation because everyone is somewhat convinced that she was on the ferris wheel to commit suicide. Meanwhile, Ivy is less than pleased with answers that were given about Ethan’s death and puts her hypothetical detectives cap on to try and get some honest answers. The one time that she goes to see Morgan in the hospital, Morgan gives her a booth prize that Ethan was really proud of – one of the scorpions encased in gel kind of things. She said she found it on the track when she found Ethan’s body, but it was in a weird spot – farther away than Ethan would have walked to go home. Furthermore, Ethan would either by walked home by a cousin or call his mom, but it obviously doesn’t seem like either of those things happened. Morgan then asks Ivy not to come and see her in the hospital anymore. This hurts Ivy, but she decides to do what Morgan asks. Anything to help her friend out and get her out of there.

Talking to people at Fabuland just gives Ivy more questions than answers. People were taking off time and switching schedules a lot around the time of his death, he had left his backpack in his locker, there was one particular ride that he rode with some friends and then said that he would never get another chance to ride.. a lot of things that aren’t clicking. Meanwhile, Ivy’s also trying to help her father keep the park not only running, but thriving. The purchase of the park came following Ivy and her brother Jason helping their dad to keep their donut business up. The donut business is a family business that Ivy’s grandparents had started, and kind of folded into the theme park business after the purchase.

Morgan gets out of the hospital, and seems eager to see Ivy, until she realizes that Ivy’s going to start asking more questions about that night. She literally makes her mom send Ivy away and refuses to answer her texts unless it’s in a vague way. Ivy persists, even though she’s feeling pretty upset that Morgan doesn’t want to see her. Oh, yeah, there’s also this tape recorder that Ivy happens to find in her dad’s office and she listens to her dad talk to a local reporter, and then to her own mother. Both times it’s women, both times he’s super condescending. She tries to find out where the tape recorder came from and who had planted it in his office, but also draws a blank there.

Some more answers from some more teenagers starts making Ivy think that maybe Ethan had a concussion that night. Another sad thought: what if Ethan didn’t fall, and wasn’t pushed? What if Ethan simply... jumped? She starts to think that it’s pretty awful of people to automatically consider that someone with down syndrome couldn’t be sad just like the rest of us. It also begins to become abundantly clear that Ivy’s dad isn’t just kind of gross and off-putting: he’s a full-on jackass. He depends on everyone else to do his job for him, he’s insanely condescending and piggish to all women, especially his ex and his own daughter. I mean, he fires the chick that runs the water park portion of Fabuland after a mistake that wasn’t totally her fault, and he’s ridiculously rude while doing so.

While talking to her brother Jason, Ivy starts to connect some dots that her father doesn’t really seem to see her as a daughter. Yeah, like that. He also tells Ivy that she needs to just look pretty and stop asking questions, which isn’t a huge red flag right on his nasty face or anything. Ivy ends up going and talking to a guy that hasn’t been on the schedule for a while after she gets his address from her brother, and though the conversation doesn’t go great, she feels like she’s at least drawn attention to how weird the situation seems. Until the next morning, when her brother calls her freaking out because the guy she spoke with overdosed and is in the hospital. Oh yeah, people know a girl was there talking to him, too.

Ivy’s confidantes are dwindling down at this point, and her dad is running full-force into this idea that he’s going to have a huge event toward the end of the summer and attract a ton of people by curating this gigantic donut and letting everyone take a bite. He’s trusted Ivy to take point of contact on the social media for this, and while she’s in his office doing some work, she looks on his phone and sees a message from who has to be the kid that overdosed, telling her father that Ivy was there that night asking a bunch of questions. She confronts her father, who tells her again that she needs to keep minding her own business, but also says he’s proud of her for sticking up for herself? I just don’t like him…

Ivy’s growing closer to one of the workers, Ben, that she remembers kind of harboring a crush for. He’s a really nice guy, but he’s like 21 and she’s 17 so I feel just a little weird about it. However, they’re eating together chatting about everything and are confronted by another one of the workers, who’s in love with Ethan’s cousin, and tells her to just knock her crap off playing the detective. Ivy’s hurt by this, but understands, and is really going to back down. However, she realizes something. She thinks that the tape recorder that she found is the cousin’s, and asks her about it. The cousin tells Ivy that she’s ready to tell her a harsh truth and invites her to her house.

Listening to some other recordings that she’d saved beforehand, Ivy has to listen to her father hit on Morgan. Like, full on hit on her, tell her he likes her in a bathing suit and wants to see her outside of his office window in that suit. It’s disgusting. She leaves and confronts Morgan once and for all, who tells her that not only did her father try and have a sexual relationship with Morgan, he also did it with Ethan’s cousin. Ivy doesn’t know what to do or think, but she knows that she’s going to confront her father after the big donut event. The day comes, and while they’re there, Ethan’s cousin and the kid that OD’d show up and tell literally everyone at the event that the dad is a total slime ball and that Ethan DIDN’T die from falling. The poor kid suffered from grand mal seizures and had one on the ride, then Ivy’s dad convinced the kid that OD’d to help him cover it up. I know, this guy is just a real prize, isn’t he? Ivy has to literally stop her father from hurting Ethan’s cousin, the kid involved, and a bunch of other people at the event, and he ends up in the hospital as a result.

Ivy’s entire world has been turned upside down by Fabuland and the death of Ethan, and she has no idea where to go from here. However, it seems as if there may be hope for her, hope for Morgan, hope for her brother Jason. Just, hope.

My Rating:

6/10. This book went in a direction I hadn’t initially expected, but it told a lot of hard truths that come out when you realize that your parents are also just people. And sometimes, they’re not good people.

Devastation Rating:

4/10. I’m so sad about Ethan, that poor guy, but I’m amazed he was the only death in the entire book.

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Until next time <3