#BookReview: Broken Things by @OliverBooks with @RiseOfTheReader

About the Book:

It’s been five years since Summer Marks was brutally murdered in the woods. 

Everyone thinks Mia and Brynn killed their best friend. 

That driven by their obsession with a novel called The Way into Lovelorn the three girls had imagined themselves into the magical world where their fantasies became twisted, even deadly.

The only thing is: they didn’t do it. 

On the anniversary of Summer’s death, a seemingly insignificant discovery resurrects the mystery and pulls Mia and Brynn back together once again. 

But as the lines begin to blur between past and present and fiction and reality, the girls must confront what really happened in the woods all those years ago—no matter how monstrous.

About the Author: Lauren Oliver is the cofounder of media and content development company Glasstown Entertainment, where she serves as the President of Production.  She is also the New York Times bestselling author of the YA novels Replica, Vanishing Girls, Panic, and the Delirium trilogy: Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. The film rights to both Replica and Lauren's bestselling first novel, Before I Fall, were acquired by Awesomeness Films. Before I Fall was adapted into a major motion picture starring Zoey Deutch. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, garnering a wide release from Open Road Films that year.

Oliver is a 2012 E. B. White Read-Aloud Award nominee for her middle-grade novel Liesl & Po, as well as author of the middle-grade fantasy novel The Spindlers and The Curiosity House series, co-written with H.C. Chester. She has written one novel for adults, Rooms.

Oliver co-founded Glasstown Entertainment with poet and author Lexa Hillyer. Since 2010, the company has developed and sold more than fifty-five novels for adults, young adults, and middle-grade readers. Some of its recent titles include the New York Times bestseller Everless, by Sara Holland; the critically acclaimed Bonfire, authored by the actress Krysten Ritter; and The Hunger by Alma Katsu, which received multiple starred reviews and was praised by Stephen King as “disturbing, hard to put down” and “not recommended…after dark.” 

Oliver is a narrative consultant for Illumination Entertainment and is writing features and TV shows for a number of production companies and studios.

Oliver received an academic scholarship to the University of Chicago, where she was elected Phi Beta Kappa. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from New York University.
www.laurenoliverbooks.com.

Reviewed By: Jessica P. 

Publisher: HarperCollins

Recommended Age: Young Adult 

Genre: Mystery 
Goodreads | Amazon

My Review: I have to say that I haven't really liked anything other than the Delirium series by this author.  But this one was very good.  It started out with Brynn talking about how she and her friend killed another one of their friends then ending that saying they didn't do it.  Which I thought was really creepy and well kind of weird. Once you get past that it goes into a full story about how these girls were treated with their town thinking they killed this girl. We learn a lot about the before and after. 

For the story, I have to say that this 416-page story could have been around 1-2 hundred pages shorter.  I found myself wanting to skim a lot of it as it felt like it just wasn't needed.  A lot of this story is very slow then they would figure out a clue or we would switch back to the Then parts of this story and it would speed up.  I did enjoy the dual POV as well as the cutback and forth.  The Then parts lead us up to the day that Summer died and it really gave you a well-rounded story.  

The characters were pretty good. I didn't really like Brynn all that much but I can kind of understand how she felt because of how she was treated by her family as well as the town.   Mia was a really good character as well which rounds out our dual POV.  The rest of the characters were very well thought out of as well.  I enjoyed reading about everyone.  

The twist in this one was very well done. Normally with books like this, I can figure out who the murderer is early on and this one I didn't. I will say that the person who did the deed wasn't really in the story at all other than early on so that might be why.  It really made me keep guessing on who had killed Summer.  I also really enjoyed how we were given bits and pieces of the story leading up to her death and how your perception of Summer changed as the story went on.  She started out as this really good person and then you see her true colors by the end.  

This book is REALLY creepy! And at parts very graphic.  There were some parts that I didn't care for with fat shaming and some gay slurs. But those are not exactly glossed over and were handled very well.  All in all, I think that this was a very enjoyable story to read if you like a good murder mystery. 

Do I Recommend this book? Yes, Great Murder Mystery with a few issues 

Go Into This One Knowing: Homophobic Slurs, Fat Shaming, Murdered Children, Graphic Violence, Murder/Abuse of an Animal.

 

Did you know that comments are DELICIOUS? Well they are and if you comment on any of these posts you could win some awesome goodies! 

Don't forget to check out our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and out other social media found on the side bar! 

 Disclaimer: "All opinions are 100% honest and my own."  Thanks to Goodreads and Amazon for the book cover, about the book, and author information. Buying via these links allows my site to get a % of the sale at no cost to you. 

FTC Guidelines: In accordance with FTC guidelines regarding endorsements and testimonials for bloggers, I would like my readers to know that many of the books I review are provided to me for free by the publisher or author of the book in exchange for an honest review. If am compensated for any reviews on this site I will state that post has been sponsored. 

Posted in: HarperCollins, Jessica P., Review, Young Adult