New Release: Broken Beautiful Hearts

-

 Broken Beautiful Hearts by Kami Garcia (401 pages)
Overview: Payton is having the perfect day, complete with a letter of acceptance to play division one soccer at UNC-Chapel Hill the next year, when everything goes wrong at a party she doesn't even want to go to. By the end of the night, she's in the hospital with a destroyed knee after her boyfriend shoves her down the stairs when she breaks up with him for his steroid abuse. When threats start coming in when Payton speaks out, her mother moves her in with her uncle in Black Water, Tennessee to focus on rehab there till everything calms down. Though the move is the last thing Payton wants, she may discover it is just what she needs. Overall: 5 

 Characters: 5 I love Payton. She's the perfect mix of snark, seriousness, emotion, and power. Outspoken and bright, but also world weary, she tells a difficult story in a way that makes you laugh, cry, and swoon at all the right moments.
The people who surround her are also perfectly written. Her Black Water friends form the perfect group for her healing, and I loved her cousin's characters. They start out with a very "Southern gentleman" mentality, preset with strong notions about gender stereotypes. My favorite scene is in the second to last chapter because it really shows the full arc that they make and how Payton influenced them.
Garcia also succeeds in making Reed, Payton's abusive ex-boyfriend and stalker, truly scary. While Payton becomes an expert at brushing it off, Reed's obsession is shown in a very deep and intimidating way.

Plot: 5 This story took so many roads that I didn't anticipate. Even though this story isn't a thriller, it had me on the edge of my seat, wondering what was in store next. It's a very dynamic book that surprised me both with how complete the character and plot arcs are.

Writing: 5 Garcia keeps a fast pace with this book. I read it in two days with ease, and, despite it's length, she really needs every word she uses. Garcia didn't just make a book, she opens up a pocket into Payton's world and seals the gap behind them leaving the reader to live Payton's life and experience everything right there with her.

Links Of Interest
If you liked this article, please share it with your friends and check out our other articles ranging from book reviews to poetry and short stories to editorials. To get updates about new posts and extras, please follow us on Instagram (@readingwritingandme), Twitter (@readwriteandme), and Facebook or sign up for email alerts by clicking the subscribe button at the top of the sight. Also, please leave comments or email us (readingwritingandme@gmail.com) with your thoughts or review requests. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You'd Be Home By Now by Kathleen Glasgow: YA Book Review

-
Image
  You'd Be Home By Now  by Kathleen Glasgow  I'm very thankful to the publisher for providing me with this ARC to share my honest thoughts on this book with all of you. Overview: Emory has always been the good one. The nice one. The easy one. The invisible one. Her older sister, Maddie, is gorgeous and talented. Her older brother, Joey, is struggling with addiction issues, and her parents saddle Emory with the responsibility of being his forever babysitter. No one thinks about Emory- ever. Which leads her to pick up a habit of stealing and collecting small things and hooking up with the high school baseball star next door to feel seen and important. While Joey is stuck on the rollercoaster of his addiction, his family is right there behind him, and as Emory struggles to keep Joey stable, she's also left to contend with her own precariously okay life. Overall: 5+ Characters: 5 Emory is maybe the most universally relatable teen character in YA. She feels unheard and unseen by
Read more

Hole In The Middle

-
Image
Hole In The Middle  by Kendra Fortmeyer (September 4) Overview: Morgan is like everyone else starting senior year. She's easing into adulting and thinking about her future. She's living in an apartment with her best friend Caro and trying to figure out how to break it to her super driven, successful, fitness guru mom that she doesn't really want to go to college. Morgan also spends a fair amount of time at the doctor's office because she has a peach sized hole straight through her abdomen. There's been one rule her entire life. Don't let anyone know about the hole, and, besides Caro and Caro's boyfriend Todd, she's succeeded. One night, though, she cuts herself a crop top and goes out to a club called Mansion where she shows off her true self, in all her glory. Photos spread like a wildfire on the internet, and she's approached by a new doctor who thinks she might have a cure. Though it  comes with press crews, a boy who has a lump that won'
Read more

Happy Place by Emily Henry: romance review

-
Image
Happy Place  by Emily Henry Overview: Harriet found her friend group for life in college. They might as well be her family. They've grown together through graduation and law school and medical school and one member leaving to go to South America to learn organic farming because they always come back together to spend a week in Maine every year at one friend's family summer house. Now, as they confront true adulthood and the changes that come with it, they have one more summer together before the house is sold to set the course of the future of their bonds. Overall: 4 Do I think this is an incredible romance? Maybe not. But it is a great book.  Characters: 4 There's a lot of characters in this book. The core friend group is six people, plus we get a closer look at both Harriet and her ex-fiancé Wyn's families. They're all well developed and have good dimension despite there being so many characters involved.  Harriet is at a crisis point in her life. She's in the
Read more