Info:
Title: Broken
Author: A.E. Rought
Release Date: January 8, 2013
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Series? No
Genre: YA, Romance, Horror, Gothic, Retelling
Page Count: 384

Summary:

Imagine a modern spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where a young couple’s undying love and the grief of a father pushed beyond sanity could spell the destruction of them all.

A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry’s boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetery and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.

When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she’s intrigued despite herself. He’s an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely… familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel’s.

The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there’s something very wrong with Alex Franks. And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks’ estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows. (summary from goodreads)

My Review:
I was really excited to read Broken. First, the cover is gorgeous! I especially liked the heart in the “O” of the archway and the red background. Second, it’s billed as a “modern spin on Frankenstein,” which is one of my favorite classics.

Unfortunately, my excitement didn’t last long. But before I get into the bad, let me talk about what I did like about Broken.

Emma. I liked some aspects of her personality. Many of the other girls at Shelley High are catty and cruel, like clique-y teenage girls can be. When Emma spends the first part of the school year mourning her dead boyfriend, she’s “emo.” But when she moves on to Alex, she’s “a slut.” Emma doesn’t let the mean girls get to her, which is what I liked. She has somewhat of an “I don’t give a f*ck” personality in that regard.

The other good thing about Broken? We see Emma’s parents! All too often in YA books, parents either aren’t around or are bad parents. It’s the exact opposite in this book. Emma’s parents are both present and both care about their daughter. Her mom is super over-protective, with the typical “no guy is good enough for my daughter” attitude. Her dad is pretty cool too, and having both parents in Broken allows for some parent-daughter conversations you don’t always get in YA books.

Moving on.

I almost gave up on Broken within the first few chapters. Not much happened, except Emma moping over her dead boyfriend and giving every single detail about her day from what she ate for breakfast to the clothes she wore. And when she met Alex, the new guy at school, I knew I wasn’t going to like Broken very much. Hello, insta-love! The summary for the book really spoils things in that regard, but Emma gives it away, too, with her repeated comparisons of Daniel and Alex.

I kept flicking the pages, though, somehow getting through the boring middle. Not a lot happens, at least not a lot that I can remember. Just lots of descriptions of typical teenage life, with Emma going back and forth about Alex. The “I shouldn’t feel this way about him, I barely know him, but I can’t live without him” variety. In Broken’s defense, there actually is a reason for the insta-love, but it still wasn’t something I enjoyed.

The ending of Broken finally brought the action I had been hoping. But by that point, it was too much, too fast, and too late. I didn’t get the mad scientist vibe for Dr. Franks, couldn’t understand Josh’s motivation, and I wasn’t creeped out at all, even by the half-dead animals on the Franks estate. I think this was partly due to the writing — the author has some creative and different ways of describing things, but she did it for everything.

Some examples of how Emma’s cellphone is described:
—”My cell comes to life, the vibrate setting making the pink thing look like it has legs.” (est. p9)
—”My cell phone comes alive in my locker, a swarm in a metal can.” (est. p21)
—”My cell phone buzzes, sounding like bees and chicken bones as it rattles against the pencils in the front pocket of my backpack.” (est. p121)
[page numbers are estimates, from the page counter on Aldiko]

So by the time I got to the animals that were half alive and half metal, I was numb from that type of writing. If it had been used more sparingly, I might have been more horrified by Dr. Franks and his experiments.

To conclude, Broken just wasn’t the book for me. Too much romance and too little action.

Rating:

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– leeanna