I'm glad I read this book. I think it'll teach a lot of younger teenagers some important lessons that I myself had to learn the hard way. I think it was very much focused on delivering a moral, which I like, but I suppose it wasn't necessarily for me. There were still moments of sweetness and amusing dialogue that I liked. I guess you could say that I simply wasn't that hyped about it, but I still think it has a lot of value. (i hope this review makes a lil sense)

I adored this for how it dealt with mental health and the beauty and simplicity of friendship.

3.5 or 4. Barnard does a great job conveying the power, passion and influence of female teenage friendships. I thought the characters were believable and well drawn. A bit of a downer but so many good books are.

This is the kind of book I am always looking for. Never mind the plot, (though it is fantastic) just give me characters I can believe in! Give me real people with real lives, people I start to care about and root for. Beautiful Broken Things is narrated by sixteen year old Caddy, a girl who has always been well behaved. Caddy and Rosie have been best friends for years, though they do not attend the same school. Everything is turned upside down with the arrival of Suzanne, a rather dark and troubled soul, who befriends Rosie at school. At first Caddy is jealous and insecure. Suzanne seems to like her, but she can't help feel intimated by this girl, who is wild, secretive and beautiful. Caddy is slightly bored of being a good girl and longs for a 'significant life event' to happen to her. Well, it happens in a big way when Suzanne slowly leads her off the rails, jeopardising her relationship with Rosie, the trust of her parents and even her own safety. Suzanne is a brilliant character, with many layers, secrets and faces. I enjoyed how this book explored the truth that lies between friendships, in that we all show a different face to different friends, depending on what we get from them. Suzanne is one way with Caddy and another way with Rosie. The communication and dialogue between the girls was incredibly well done, never once feeling forced or contrived. I felt they were all very real, individual people. I felt tremendously for Caddy, who just wants to be noticed, needed and interesting. She goes on quite a journey in the book, shedding the skin of the old, timid her to become something more. I also felt incredibly moved by Suzanne's story; she is a very fragile and broken character, and I felt the author did well in exploring how hurtful pasts continue to haunt people even after they have 'moved on.' The ending was satisfying and realistic, and everything about this book made me smile. YA at its best.

*3/5 stars*

“People we love come and go, Caddy. That doesn’t mean we loved them any less at the time.”

Definitely didn't love this one quite as much as A Quiet Kinf of Thunder, but still a great contemporary book. My main problem is that I read this book in the wrong time and didn't read the annotation before picking it up. I thought it would be light and cute book with few heavier topics, but still a light read like the author's second book. And it was not. It was darker than I anticipated. This book deals with some heavy topics - in a great and realistic way though - and while I was not in similar situation to Suzanne's, it brough some bad memories for me at time I didn't need them to. In a strange way, while my personality is very very different from Suzanne's, I do have some things here and there in common with her. I'm glad I read this book and I was 100% satisfied with the ending, though for a minute there I was afraid it would end... in a way that would make me mad. So I'm really glad the author ended things as she did, loose as they may seem for some readers. I also loved the female friendship and the fact that this book was a love story, but not the romantic kind. I thought that all the friendships here were realistic. Both light and dark. There was no romance here and I'm glad because it wouldn't fit the story.
I've read in a few reviews saying that this book would've been better if it was told from Suzanne's point of view instead of Caddy's. And while I agree Suzanne was WAY better character than Caddy (I actually didn't always like Caddy all that much), I'm glad the author chose this narrative. It's basically told (more or less) from an observer's point of view, from a girl who is more on the sidelines of the story. So while the story is from Caddy's POV, it still most of the time feels like it's about Suzanne. And there's no denying that she's the best character of the book.
Caddy on the other hand, I had kind of like-meh-hate relationship with.
I don't mind the fact that she's naive all that much, I actually like when MC starts out as naive and grows through the story, learns some lessons, if it's done well. But, there was something about the stark contrast between Caddy and Suzanne that bothered me sometimes. Caddy was great friend to her most of the times (not always), yes, but she also didn't understand Suzanne at all. Sometimes I was just shaking my head as to 'how could she not get her that much'. She was supportive, but her priviledged life made her decidedly not understand any of the things Suzanne was dealing with.
One minute I was kinda liking her, and the next she proves how much of a shelterd and privileged life she led before Suzanne. At times it felt like she was this rich girl treating Suzanne as this big adventure, not understanding her isssues. Suzanne was going through this big thing, and yet it felt to me like Caddy (sometimes) whined about how nothing 'Significant' happened to her and how 'boring' that makes her. No matter how naive she was, she should've been fucking grateful that no tragedy happened in her 16 years of life and not whine about it.

But in the end I wouldn't change anything about how this book was told (only Cady's personality a little). It was a great debut which I will maybe pick up at a better time again to appreciate it more than I can now and maybe I will give it higher rating then.

Trigger Warnings: Focus on a side character abused by a family member in the past.

Everything felt a bit rushed to me; there wasn't enough depth into rosie and caddy's friendship or caddy and Suzanne's and the dynamics between them just seemed to change unrealistically quickly. I feel like representations of mental health and how they affect people and their relationships is important but I didn't really like the plot of this book and nothing felt developed enough.

.

This was a definite cover buy.

I went into this book not knowing what to expect but it definitely surprised me how relatable I was with the main character, Caddy Oliver.

The fact that her insecurities was that she would remain dull and boring for anyone to remember her made me feel for her. At the beginning of the book, at least.

What I love about this book is probably how it focused on the main theme of this book; female friendship. Nothing veered the story away from that theme. Not boys, not the need to lose your virginity. I could clearly see it from start till finish. And the characters? Rosie was probably my favourite, for the fact that she was thinking rationally most of the time in the book. And how loyal she was to Caddy. That's what I call friendship. Another one is probably Tarin, Caddy's older sister, who handled her own condition pretty indifferently. And other strongly.

Other themes include post-abuse, family, suicide.

What I don't like about this book, though, is the idea that acting out is okay. This was why I couldn't be happy about this book. This is where the ranting starts.

Just because you've been through something, doesn't mean you can act like the typical teenage rebel. God, Suzanne annoyed me. I don't care if she was an abuse victim (I do care. Don't bash me because of that). The chance that she was given to start over should be used to heal herself. Not make it as an excuse to run away at night to climb roofs and have sex with boys. She wanted the attention, I get it. But she didn't realize that she got Sarah, her aunt, her brother, Brian and her best friends. And maybe, there would someday be someone who would actually love her for who she is and not just for her pretty face. And then she goes and pull Caddy with her.

Caddy Oliver. I liked her at the beginning. We were almost similar, in a way. Until she acted like it was her job to carry Suzanne's emotional baggage. Again, she just wanted the attention and the feeling of being needed. I feel that way most of the time. But that is not an excuse to disobey your parents. The parents who were actually there for you. God, Caddy. What were you doing?

Next, when someone with trauma needs help, get the freakin' help. Don't act like you know what you're doing.

Hence, 3/5 stars.