Pages:
326
Publisher:
Macmillan
Release
Date: 11th
February 2016
Edition:
UK signed proof,
review copy
I
was brave
She
was reckless
We
were trouble
Best
friends Caddy and Rosie are inseparable. Their differences have brought them
closer, but as she turns sixteen Caddy begins to wish she could be a bit more
like Rosie – confident, funny and interesting. Then Suzanne comes into their
lives: beautiful, damaged, exciting and mysterious, and things get a whole lot
more complicated. As Suzanne’s past is revealed and her present begins to
unravel, Caddy begins to see how much fun a little trouble can be. But the
course of both friendship and recovering is rougher than that either girl
realises, and Caddy is about to learn that downward spirals have a momentum of
their own.
Sara Barnard’s debut is a bold
and emotional novel about the intensity of friendship and what happens when it
goes a little wrong.
Beautiful
Broken Things is
a beautifully written novel that explores so many facets of the friendship
between teenage girls. It's a time where everything is at its most intense and
friendship isn’t an exception. I can vividly remember the friend break-ups and
betrayals I had as a teenager and even the memory of some of them makes me
flinch, especially in the case of a newbie sliding in and stealing your BFF as
happens when Suzanne arrives and disrupts Caddy and Rosie’s lives.
What followed was a cascade of
bad decisions and my heart ached for Rosie, and for Suzanne. Some of the worse
decisions made me physically cringe and it was hard to read in places as I really
don’t like cringing and the articular sense of foreboding it brings along with
it, especially as I recognised my teenage self in Caddy’s innocence and naivety;
the number of times I did something I knew wasn’t a good idea purely to seem
cool or be a person’s favourite is embarrassing... It was heart-breaking. As
for Suzanne, I felt horribly sad for her and everything shed experienced, but I
also hated her a lot of the time, even if her actions towards Caddy and Rosie
were sometimes unconscious. The general dynamics between the three girls were
forever shifting throughout Beautiful
Broken Things and it was fascinating to watch it all unfold.
Sara Barnard delivered a wonderful
debut and I’m looking forward to seeing what she brings to the table next.
Thanks to Macmillan/MyKindaBook
for the review copy.
Sophie
I loved this, especially the realistic portrayal of teen girl friendships :)
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