DEAR CANADA: Landslide

All Fall Down follows Abby and her family as they travel from Montreal to the town of Frank in Alberta and start a new life there. The father of the family is killed in an accident and when all his debts are discovered, the mother decides to write to her brother for help. He's started a hotel in Frank with his wife and son, so they're glad of the help.

Abby's main job is taking care of her younger brother Davy, who has Down Syndrome. He's the second such character in the series of DA and its spinoffs, although Gideon from Down the Rabbit Hole was much older. Olivia and John, the eldest siblings, practically hate their younger brother, and it takes months for them to grow out of their father's bad influence. The father was really an asshole character, while the mother is nice.

Everyone pitches in at the hotel or finds other local jobs. Olivia has boyfriend drama. Abby makes a Native Canadian friend. John's kind of an ass.

Throughout the book, there's a big secret and John is the one that finally reveals it. Abby isn't related to them. She's a baby that was brought to the mother by her father. She was one of the few survivors of a cholera epidemic aboard a ship and the mother's father brought her the baby, knowing she needed someone to care for, as her husband was pulling her own children more under his influence and away from her. (Told you he was an asshole.) The father never likes Abby and makes his children not like her much either. Thankfully, their time together after his death fixes all those shitty things.

Right when Abby is dealing with this shocking news, the landslide happens, killing many people, though all the main characters survive. Abby talks to her mother about her history after they've recovered from the tragedy and finally learns what little her mother knows.

The book is well-written and the characters, while not all likeable immediately, all eventually end up well. The landslide comes at the very end, so mostly this is just the story of a girl and her family.