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A review by aly_f
Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard
3.0
Do you ever open a book and instantly know "ah, this is going to take me on an emotional journey"?
Beautiful Broken Things is a YA novel wonderfully exploring what it is to share friendship in the age of trauma. It’s the discovery of making something of yourself and it feels significant.
The story follows Caddy, our narrator, who is inseparable from her friend Rosie. But then comes along Suzanne, who is exciting and damaged, and suddenly things are a lot more complicated than they once were. Friendship meshes with recovery, and downward spirals can’t be stopped.
What struck me the most about Beautiful Broken Things is that it is a novel geared to young adults addressing platonic love; and yet it is so much more. Between the pages are whispers of life lessons that can be easily overlooked if we take the novel at face value.
The tone of the novel, which is set through Caddy’s teenage comparisons of her own life to that of her friends, gives the first lesson. Acceptance. We see characters face sympathy upon others learning of their trauma; the struggle of now being seen as flawed.
Caddy’s narrative is beautiful in the sense that it is flawed. She is ignorant of the damage her comparisons cause, oblivious to the weight and scarring trauma can still hold. This immaturity can be frustrating; however, having a narrator be so blatantly wrong is refreshing. This candour brings something different to this read.
Read Beautiful Broken Things if you want to experience the beauty in being broken, the empowerment of healing, and the power that is friendship from the perspective of a young adult.
Beautiful Broken Things is a YA novel wonderfully exploring what it is to share friendship in the age of trauma. It’s the discovery of making something of yourself and it feels significant.
The story follows Caddy, our narrator, who is inseparable from her friend Rosie. But then comes along Suzanne, who is exciting and damaged, and suddenly things are a lot more complicated than they once were. Friendship meshes with recovery, and downward spirals can’t be stopped.
What struck me the most about Beautiful Broken Things is that it is a novel geared to young adults addressing platonic love; and yet it is so much more. Between the pages are whispers of life lessons that can be easily overlooked if we take the novel at face value.
The tone of the novel, which is set through Caddy’s teenage comparisons of her own life to that of her friends, gives the first lesson. Acceptance. We see characters face sympathy upon others learning of their trauma; the struggle of now being seen as flawed.
Caddy’s narrative is beautiful in the sense that it is flawed. She is ignorant of the damage her comparisons cause, oblivious to the weight and scarring trauma can still hold. This immaturity can be frustrating; however, having a narrator be so blatantly wrong is refreshing. This candour brings something different to this read.
Read Beautiful Broken Things if you want to experience the beauty in being broken, the empowerment of healing, and the power that is friendship from the perspective of a young adult.