Oh please, am I honestly supposed to feel sorry for her?Īnd then we get to the crux of the story - her best friend, Rosie, has a new friend called Suzanne and tries to get them to all hang out together. Then we get the spiel of how hard it is for her with wealthy, boring parents and the fact that she has to attend a private school and *gasp* wear an ugly uniform. I'm sorry, but how dare she claim that losing a sister and being mentally ill makes them more interesting? My only hope was that she was going to learn some hard lessons as the book progressed. She is jealous because her life is so boring compared to death and mental illness. She - again, literally - compares herself negatively to Rosie and Tarin because Rosie's dad walked out and her baby sister died, and Tarin is bipolar. um, they've never had a tragedy happen to them.Ĭaddy - literally, I am not exaggerating - pities herself because she is uninteresting. Selfish, jealous, unlikable characters can be very interesting but I draw the line at bratty rich girls who feel sorry for themselves because. My dislike for her was almost instantaneous and I found her increasingly unsympathetic. If I hadn't been pushed onward by the other positive ratings, I'm sure I would have DNFed it. Though, even if we take that matter out for a second, this book lacked a compelling spark that books like The Girls of No Return had. Firstly, I pretty much despised the narrator - Caddy - and never really came to like or understand any of the characters or their actions.

Authors like Leah Raeder and Courtney Summers understand and capture this world perfectly.īut I had so many problems with Beautiful Broken Things. I love books that explore this subject - the way teenage girls get so wrapped up in one another, loving and hating each other with a furious intensity. It's British YA about the jealousies, passions and conflicts involved in teen girl friendships. This book should have been right up my alley. My parents were still married, my best friend had been constant for over ten years, I'd never been seriously ill and no one close to me had died.' 'Not that I'm complaining, but my life up to the age of sixteen had been steady and unblemished.

Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard