Broken

by Ae Rought

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. She and Daniel had been made for each other. When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she's intrigued despite herself. He is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely...familiar. The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there's something very wrong. And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks' estate, she knows...

• ISBN10: 1908844310
• ISBN13: 9781908844316
• Publish Date: 8 January 2013 (first published 1 January 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Angry Robot
• Imprint: Strange Chemistry
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Language: English

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

Read [b:Henry Franks|13490787|Henry Franks|Peter Adam Salomon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330195835s/13490787.jpg|19030152] instead.

The Good:
+ Pretty cover

The Bad & The Other:
-- Since when do schools allow hoodies to be up during class??? I went to school in MI and that shit didn’t fucking fly.
-- Trying too hard, feels fake and forced
-- Too long
-- Obvious
-- Didn’t delve into any of the important issues this subject brings to mind
-- Instalove angles
-- Emma sucks as a protagonist
-- Her parents felt off with their responses
-- Ending was anti-climactic and didn’t answer pertinent questions just the romantic nonsense
-- Tired evil scientist trope with no depth.

**headdesk**

I squandered days on this awful book. It was so long and dull. The only thing that kept me going was being a completionist and the teeny tiny hope it’d get better with answers.

It did not. But let’s start from the beginning.

It starts with red flags waving.



We first meet Emma as she’s wandering the cemetery and her Halloween decorated neighborhood. Automatically it felt like it was trying too hard for that edgy alternative feeling and fell flat.

Emma’s also the standard klutzy young woman who can’t do two things at once. Her previous boyfriend and love of her life, Daniel, had to constantly save her from herself. She doesn’t seem to have a personality or a life beyond Daniel. UGH.

From there, it’s the same standard plot and angsty teenage love. It’s so obvious where it is going. When you’re using something classic like Frankenstein’s monster you need to bring something fresh, new, and make it damn good. Broken fails on all accounts.



I was SO fucking tired of hearing about Alex’s eyes, the electricity between them, how it opens her locker like Daniel, blah blah blah. GET TO THE FUCKING POINT. Stop assuming readers are dunces and beating them over the head with it.

Emma: “Oh, it’s not possible. It’s all in my mind.” Then talk to someone about it instead of wasting your “best friends” time and dismissing her instantly since you’re so sure. Try a fucking shrink. They can’t share information with your parent’s without your permission. Try a fucking medium or whatever mumbo jumbo crap with your best friend. DO SOMETHING.

Her best friend Bree is the achingly hot theatrical woo-believer who pumps up her attractiveness above all other qualities. From Emma’s point of view anyways. I kept wondering why they were friends. They didn’t seem to do much or get along.



More FUUUUUU about Emma:

Gods, she was so annoying. Forcing herself to feel bad and feeling unreasonably guilty over everything. She repeats herself and it’s not even consistent. It’s stupid waffle-y “oh woe” bullshit.

She’s supposedly just a normal non-popular hanger on of the Drama group. Yet she ends up with FOUR guys so hot to trot over her there’s murderous consequences.



Emma also appears to be really fucking dense. Along with everyone else. When Daniel’s demise was finally revealed, the FIRST thought I had was about Jason. How the fuck did no one else? Why was Emma blamed by her parents and not the dude that actually pushed him?. It doesn’t make any sense.



Romance:
Stop telling me they love each other and show me why! But you can't because there's NO reason! They shouldn't be together!

Okay, so I’ve complained about this already but the “I’m broken, he’s broken and together we’re fixed/broken together & it’s beautiful” type talk is 1.) fucking stupid and 2.) a terrible message. They’re needy, codependent, possessive and obsessive. It’s not sweet, it’s toxic. Whyyyyyyy? Fuck these terrible relationships.



Besides that, how is Emma broken? Her first love died. That’s it. She can get over it and move on but noooooo. Let’s kidnap someone else’s body for her! Oy. It’d prefer it if they overcame their issues to lead happy lives apart.

The Ending:

Even if I loved the book before this part, I’d loathe the fucking ending. Magic happily ever after with no fucking answers for shit that’s actually important.

What about the other boys? Could they prove the murders and their families get answers/closure? Did the government seize their labs and the formula? What is even in it? How’d they explain it away? GRRR!



Oh, gods there’s a fucking sequel?!?!?! FUCKING HELL NO!

[KitsuneBae]

If this book was entitled Frankenstein Inlove, I would have given this a 3.5 star rating.

This review is also posted on my blog at Thoughts and Pens. And at Amazon.

Please remind me again why I allowed myself to be tortured by this book. Right. Because I was STUPID. I actually didn’t know that this book existed until after I got a notification from Netgalley that Strange Chemistry has approved my request for Tainted. As I was searching GR to download Tainted’s book cover for my Stacking the Shelves post, it came to my attention that Tainted is already the second book of the Broken series. Because Stupid me believes that ARCs are not free and they’re meant to be reviewed and it was my fault for not checking things out, I purchased Broken.

At first, I was really happy. Like hey, I am going to read a Frankenstein retelling. I am scared out of my wits right now. You know, I am not really good at handling scary books because I tend to scare myself even if the story has already ended. But this book really surprised me.

By the name of the Big Bang Theory, Broken was anything but a Frankenstein retelling. It’s a gross romance story in the guise of a Frankenstein rendition to attract readers. Here’s the thing about Broken: It’s a story about Emma Gentry, a girl who is endlessly pining for her boyfriend, Daniel Hughes, who died recently because of a fall incident. She wasn’t suicidal though and continues to go to school. However, one day, a new student by the name of Alex Franks arrived at Shelley High. His presence evoked a lot of emotions in Emma including that nagging feeling that she somehow knew him even if they’ve just met.

But please, before you succumbed to the intriguing synopsis of this book, be warned. Broken will slap you in the face. And only my iron will made me read this book to the end. It was a traumatic experience because no character made the slightest effort to hold my hand while Broken tortured me in ways unimaginable. How can Emma, our heroine, help me when she’s busy grieving for her dead boyfriend, cussing at Josh and thinking about Alex Franks? And when she’s not doing any of these things, she goes to the cemetery every afternoon or go to bed wearing her dead boyfriend’s red hoodie. Nice.

I couldn’t also depend on Alex because his time is fully booked, what with opening Emma’s locker or choosing the next hoodie that he’s going to wear for the next school day or stalking her, he barely has time for anything. But what really made him stand out as a character is the fact that he brought Emma to his grandparents’ house and made her wear her dead mom’s clothes. Good lord. Gross and incorrigible.

There were only two characters who managed to arouse my interest in this book; the villains, Josh and Dr. Franks. But the author failed to show their full potential as villains. This book is made up of 346 pages without taking the time to fully develop the leads and the villains. A lot of potential gone to waste.

As if the characters were not torture enough, Broken’s plot lingered like an incurable plague. Until about page 280ish, it was just all about the romance. The suspense, the action, the mystery and the chilling moments were buried six feet under so that romance can prevail. Hep hep horray. After page 280ish, the plot finally rose from the grave and took immediate action. But by that time, it was too late. Verdict has already been drawn.

Not even A.E Rought’s beautiful prose can save Broken from plummeting to its ugly death. Not even Dr. Franks’ brilliant mind could fix this broken broken story. I hope no one’s crazy enough to make an attempt in fixing this book. If anything, it would do everyone a favour if someone killed it and throw its tattered pages to the void.

[celinenyx]

I'd like to preface this review by saying that most of my criticism stems from the fact that this novel isn't what it was marketed to be, and isn't what I was expecting at all. I did quite some research before reading Broken, checking out reviews of fellow bloggers, thinking this book was for me. It most definitely wasn't. In this review I will try to warn others to stay away from this book, if you are anything like me. For the romance lovers, especially in the tradition of Twilight, Fallen and Hush, Hush, I think you guys will eat this up. More on that later.

I'd also like to state that I read the ARC copy provided by Netgalley. So take the quotes with a grain of salt - they might not even be in the published version.

Let me sum up some facts about Broken:
- calling it a Frankenstein retelling is REALLY stretching it; there is barely a connection to the Mary Shelley's story until about sixty percent in
- nothing substantial happens (as in anything besides romantic plot development - there is a lot of that going on) until 82 percent in
- that's right, no action or horror until the last fifth of the book
- the main character falls in love in only three months after the death of her boyfriend

Basically, Broken is the story of Emma, who loses her boyfriend Daniel. Three months after his death she meets mysterious Alex, who she is instantly attracted to. But there is something wrong about him, and she is slightly hesitant to find out what.

The main problem I had with this book is the blurb. By just reading the blurb we can deduce that Alex is somehow Daniel: "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". In the book it takes her more than half the book to actually see similarities between Alex and Daniel. And this is something we already know before we even start reading. It just all took way too long for me, stretching the first half into a boring mass of angst and lovey dovey-ness.

I was waiting for the creepiness to kick in. I waited and waited. The cover is very misleading - it remembered me a bit of The Replacement, which actually was a very haunting read. Broken pretty much only features a high school and Emma's home, both of which are extremely ordinary and nothing like gothic novel material. I'd love to at least have maybe a bit of spooky setting - sitting in a cemetery drinking isn't my idea of a spooky setting.

Then there is the standard YA-cliche; the message that Broken sends. I have talked about this before, but I will bring it up again. Teenagers are easily manipulated. I'm not saying they are stupid and believe everything they read or see - but this is the period in life where you form your own image of the world, and of what is normal and what is not. If in a high-school novel you present it as normal that girls bully each other, then real teenage girls won't think bullying is all that bad. It's normal, right? My main problem with Broken was (for once) not necessarily the romance between Emma and Alex. It was rather stifling, but that's really just a personal preference. My problem is that every girl in this novel, except Emma and maybe her best friend, is labelled a slut.

Yes, a slut. Let me quote a bit for you here. "Girls up and down the line turn to him, cleavages and boobs lifting and tracking, like indicators on radar". What the...? This is one of the most degrading sentences I have ever read.

Literally every girl in Emma's school wants Alex and is jealous of her. Every guy wants to be Alex. They are constantly the conversation of the school. There are literally pages and pages describing how everyone is talking about them. Here are a few examples:

"The halls teem, people pushing, jostling and shouting. Then life grinds to a halt, all eyes on us as we walk into the main hall, hand-in-hand." I've never seen people grinding to halt because someone was holding hands. This isn't major drama material, no one is cheating or anything. Oh my god, two single people in the school are holding hands! WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?!

"He nods at guys too busy starting to nod back, and ignores the petulant lip-puffing pouts from the girls". Mind the wording - these aren't just some girls, these are the girls. Every girl. Every single girl is a dumb lip-puffing pouting brainless person. This just makes me very, very angry. It doesn't make these girls look bad, it makes all girls look bad. And to be honest, most of us don't frigging care who you're snogging anyway.

I really wonder why this book is so, SO degrading towards girls. The only person who doesn't fall victim to this is main character Emma. Emma only ever wears hoodies, preferably her boyfriend's, sometimes even multiple hoodies on top of each other (don't ask me how that should work). The lesson we can gather from this is that every girl that thinks hoodies and thermal wear is boring, is a slut. At one point Emma thinks about how she missed out on the "style" gene but only got the "practical" one. So... those two are mutually exclusive? There is absolutely no way to not look like you are wearing your brother's leftovers and be dressed practically? Behold all stylish females, we are clearly not dressed for walking around at schools! Because you know, you will look like a slut if even a hint of your cleavage is showing.

I think I get what the author is trying to say. You don't need to have the ladies hanging out of the front of your shirt to look beautiful. There is nothing wrong with having your own style. Some girls are just plain mean and jealous and petty. That message is getting completely scrambled in the process though, turning it from quite nice to a monstrosity. Maybe that's the real Frankenstein of this book.

Then there is also a scene in which Emma finds herself in a burning room. Once the paramedics arrive, she refuses treatment. This is so wrong. If you have been in a burning house and you have breathed in the fumes, you must get yourself checked out as soon as possible. She could have easily dropped dead after a few hours because the soot in her throat caused a reaction. I do not condone any of this kind of reckless behaviour in books. What if some teenager reads this, finds herself in a burning house, gets out, refuses treatment because who needs stuff like that, and dies? Really, the blame is on you.

By the way, the argument "what are the odds?" doesn't work. There shouldn't be any odds of this happening. This situation could have been mended within the story with just a few sentences. A simple "the paramedics checked all of my vitals but I was fine" would have sufficed.

Broken was not the book I was expecting to read, and if I had known what I'd be getting myself into I wouldn't have picked it up. It completely pales in comparison, but the last fifty pages or so were quite entertaining. There is some mystery and a crazy scientist, and who doesn't like one of those. It was all way too black and white for my taste, but that does fit the overall tone of the book. Really, if you are looking for a simple romance story with a dash of supernatural, you might love Broken. It has all the elements a YA romance reader will eat up, as long as you don't mind the awful generalisations the novel makes.

[inlibrisveritas]

Broken is a book that held a lot of promise for me, especially since it’s a modern day retelling of one of my favorite novels (Frankenstein). Frankenstein is a dark novel and it has so much emotion packed into it, there are brief moments of hope and love…but it’s overall rather sad,horrific and a tad angry. I would say that in this case Broken fits into that mold, but it doesn’t really feel like it should.

The summary is one that makes you think the story will get underway rather quickly, at least in the first 40% of the book but it doesn’t. Half of that description doesn’t happen until about 70% and the rest is all focused on Alex and his relationship with Emma. I’ll be the first to admit that Frankenstein doesn’t move swiftly in the beginning so I’d have been okay with a slow start before revving things up, but at 70% I’m almost done and I’ve already made most of my decisions on how I feel about it. I will say that the last part of the book is gripping and it does deliver on it’s grotesque horrors promise but it wasn’t enough to redeem the entire story for me.

Emma is a character that flip-flopped between being someone I liked and someone I wanted to go away, she’s filled with a sort of deep sadness due to the death of her boyfriend and it’s practically seeped its way into her being. So when she sees Alex who reminds her so much of her lost Daniel she grudgingly opens up, but at the same time she’s instantly attracted to him. It’s a case of the insta-love…and even though it had me rolling my eyes I let it slide given the circumstances. I did enjoy their relationship, though it was probably more for Alex than for Emma. He’s really sweet, though he is a bit too mysterious (what high school lets you wear a hood all the time?). The best part about him is that he is clearly damaged in some way, which is slowly revealed over the course of the book…and if I’m being completely honest he was the reason I kept reading. I wanted to know just how bad things were for him and why he reacted to somethings the way he did, and the overall conclusion was one that I felt answered all my lingering questions.

I’m definitely in the middle on this one. I really enjoyed some aspects of it and at the same time it was a let down, so in reality the rating is more of a 2.5.

I received this from Strange Chemistry and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

Even though this one wasn't get the greatest reviews, I was still intrigued by the blurb. And as a fan of retellings, I was curious and knew I'd need to pick it up. Well, Broken isn't really what I was expecting, although the blurb does give a lot away. The very beginning is very Twilight-esque: super clumsy girl, mysterious guy whose father is a doctor, reluctant lab partners...you get the picture. Then it becomes the almost typical YA romance.

The first three-quarters of the book is very much romance driven. That's not a bad thing, but it wasn't very interesting. It's a lot of Emma's best friend telling her that Alex likes her and that she obviously likes him, even if she doesn't admit it, and high school rumors. I did appreciate that Emma is confused about her feelings for Alex. She knows she likes him, but she's not sure if it's really him, or the fact that she sees so much of her dead boyfriend in him and she's projecting. Of course, we already know what her attraction to him is, so it was just a matter of her finding out the truth. Like I said, the blurb and the fact that this is a Frankenstein retelling kind of gives the twist away.

Alex Franks is obviously Frankenstein's monster, but how did he get that way? At the very beginning he tells Emma that his father brought him back to life, which doesn't seem to faze her at all. I found it strange that she didn't find that strange, just accepted it and it was never brought up again until closer to the end. There's a lot of wasted pages in Broken, and I think it could have been about 100 pages shorter if the author had gotten to the "mystery" of Alex and Daniel's similarities sooner, rather than dragging out the boring romance aspect. The story is also quite repetitive as we see Emma waking up, getting dressed (with difficulty to remind us she has a broken hand), grabbing breakfast and coffee, meeting up with Bree, going to class, and being walked home every single day. It was unnecessary.

It also suffered from a lot of telling rather than showing. Emma is suppose to be devastated from the death of her boyfriend, but she only tells us that she misses him. Her actions suggest he never existed, until she randomly brings him up again. Emma also occasionally tells us about the conversations she's having rather than there being dialogue. I found that kind of strange, since these were conversations that were supposed to be happening in the present, not her recalling something past. It was just a little awkward to read.

In short, Broken was disappointing. There's no suspense or mystery, and the romance is lackluster. I think if the blurb was more vague, the story wouldn't have felt so obvious. It's not all bad, but I can't honestly recommend it either.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.