Kim Deister
The story is told through two different timelines, that of 1950 and that of 2014. The earlier timeline follows four roomates at Idlewild Hall, a school for unwanted girls. The school was little more than a place to discard them. Their lives have been hard, and the school doesn’t do any better by them. So the four have bonded together, creating a family amongst the four of them. But then one of the girls disappears, leaving behind her three friends who are desperate for answers. The later timeline is that of Fiona, whose sister was murdered years earlier, her body found on Idlewild grounds. She’s never been fully satisfied with the answers her family was given, and her journalist’s mind cannot let it go. That mind goes into fever pitch when she learns that someone has bought the long abandoned school, and their intentions are to rebuild it into another school. But when she digs, she uncovers more than she ever expected to find.
It is a book that is part thriller, part ghost story, and part drama, a level of suspense that kept the pages turning. The Broken Girls is an apt title to describe the tragedies suffered by the four roommates, and Fiona. Each of the four girls at the school were cast aside by their families because of situations beyond their control, in which the girls themselves are victims. They are broken, and no one seems to care but themselves. Fiona, too, is broken, adrift since the murder of her beloved sister, almost obsessive about it. The subplots of each of the five were heartwrenching and sad, deeply emotional. Their tragedies created an atmosphere that was gloomy and gothic, shrouding them in pain and mystery. It created a sense of impending doom that was almost scarier than the actual haunting elements.
It is a story that goes beyond any one thing, more than a simple ghost story. There is so much emotion… sadness, anger, fear, frustration. There is also hope, love, friendship, and redemption. And the characters were incredibly well done. Some, like the girls and Fiona, were tragic. But they were also strong and resilient. Often, they were flawed yet just as deeply sympathetic. These are women who have been through horrible situations, and often cast aside by the very people who should have cared for them.
The Broken Girls is utterly engrossing. It’s well paced with perfectly timed twists and turns that kept me guessing to the very end!
