Torn Away

by Jennifer Brown

[Angie]

4.5★

Torn Away was my first Jennifer Brown novel, and it most definitely will not be my last! I can't really say that I liked it, because the story is super depressing, but it kept me flipping pages. I also thought it wasn't affecting me that much, but then I read the last sentence and tears formed! So yeah, it kind of snuck up on me.

Jersey is home alone when a tornado hits. It passes right over her house, ripping most of the walls away. When the storm passes, all she wants is her mom and sister who were at a dance class. A couple of days pass without their return, but eventually her stepfather comes back and breaks the news. Unable to deal with his grief, he sends Jersey away to live with her absentee father and grandparents, where she's even more alone than she was in that basement.

I immediately liked Jersey. She felt like a real, normal girl to me, and probably like someone I could be friends with. Torn Away begins with her being not so nice to her baby sister, and I actually like how she wasn't portrayed as the perfect older sister and daughter. She got annoyed and was stubborn, and that felt very genuine to me. It's also a huge source of regret, since Jersey of course, wishes she had been nicer to her sister on that final day. However, I didn't connect with Jersey as much as I wanted to, since a lot of the story is about her relationship with her sister. I'm an only child who hates kids, so I just couldn't identify with this. I did majorly relate to her relationship with her mother though, since they were close, but also had their tensions.

Most of Torn Away is just sad and upsetting. Jersey loses everything in that tornado: her house, her possession, her family, and any sense of home that she had. Her father and his parents are terrible people! The grandparents preach about helping family, which is great, except that they treat Jersey as an obligation and hindrance rather than a true part of the family. And in fact, they don't even have the resources to be helping her! It's just an all around horrible situation, which she thankfully gets out of once her stepfather takes her to her mother's parents, whom she's only heard bad things about. Of course, there's always two sides to every story, and Jersey learns that she may not have known her mom as well as she thought until she grows closer with her grandparents.

Torn Away was a mostly sad story, but the ending was full of hope and the start of happiness. There's a lot of focus on family, and what that means. Whether it's simply blood or something you feel deep inside. I loved how Jersey's story was straightforward. There's no exaggerations and unnecessary dramas. It's just real life, which isn't all sunshine and rainbows, but it's also not a soap opera dramafest. It just is what it is.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.