Breaking Beautiful ~ Jennifer Shaw Wolf review

Breaking Beautiful

Walker Children's

April 24, 2012

354 pages

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Allie's small town of Pacific Cliff's is mourning the death of her boyfriend, its golden boy, Trip. Trip died in the accident that sent his truck plunging off the seaside cliff - Allie survived but with no memory of the night or the accident.

Now, as she's recovered enough from her injuries to return to school nearly everyone seems to expect her to miss Trip as much as they do and in the same way. Only, while Allie might not be able to remember the night of the accident - the cotillion dance, the drive afterwards - she does remember the abuse she suffered at the hands of Trip. The abuse seemingly no one knew about.

With a new detective in their sleepy town, there to reopen the investigation into Trip's death, will Allie be able to continue to keep her secrets? And will she ever remember what happened the night of the accident? 

Will she even want to?

Breaking Beautiful is so much more than a story about a girl who can't remember something. Or a girl with secrets. Jennifer Shaw Wolf's debut is full of complex characters - from Allie to her brother Andrew, her childhood friend Blake, even some of the more minor school friends/foes - who have their own complicated pasts and presents that play into their motivation. 

It's a book that doesn't take things lightly and it doesn't let readers into the story lightly. We meet Allie after she's already survived the accident and is struggling with how to remember Trip, her abusive boyfriend who's died rather tragically.

With a military father she's been the new girl all her life, but now they're in her mother's hometown, where everyone knows everyone, something Allie always thought she'd be grateful for. Except that now, with Trip's death, she's seeing the darker side of that. Allie doesn't act the way everyone wants/expects her to and things quickly get very hard for her. The way that Wolf writes this is gripping, painful, and full of tension. While you do, at times, want to tell Allie something to do, there's never a surefire fix.

Her only ray of possible hope is her old friend, Blake. She'd left him behind recently but he seems to still be willing to be there for her. And he was, maybe, the only person in town who didn't love Trip.

Breaking Beautiful's plot packed so much more of a punch (literally and figuratively, I suppose) than I anticipated - I loved it.

A mystery, a romance, as well as a great look at friendship, family relationships and personal struggles, Breaking Beautiful is full of twists and turns right up until the end. You'll feel for the characters - even those you aren't sure have the best intentions - and hope everything turns out okay for all of them.

Rating: 10/10


Other books you might like: Shine by Lauren Myracle and Stay by Deb Caletti 

The Princesses of Iowa ~ M. Molly Backes (earc) review

The Princesses of Iowa
Candlewick Press
May 8, 2012
464 pages
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Paige just spent her summer in Paris and everyone's more than ready to tell her how lucky she is, how wonderful it must have been, "oh to be young again," they say. Paige's trip wasn't a lazy vacation, it wasn't a fun summer tooling around Paris - she was exiled their by her parents.

Forcibly volunteered to work (without pay) as a babysitter after last spring's accident, Paige is just happy to get back home and have everything return to normal.

Only it doesn't.

Her friends weren't granted a summer getaway (forced or not, enjoyed or not) and they don't appreciate Paige's summer abroad. Paige should have everything: she's young, rich, popular and starting her senior year. But last spring's car accident after she and her best friends leave a party (and have been drinking). It's an accident that cold have been much, much worse but it's now, in the fall that its effects seem to really be coming to light.

With her best friends and her boyfriends drifting away from her, her sister seemingly a whole new person and under her mother's constant pressure, can Paige figure out who she is - not just who they want her to be?

And will she let her creative writing class, something she thought was a joke but might turn out to be so much more, play a role?


Oh, Princesses of Iowa, you confuse me! Not a ton, but a bit more than a little bit. It took some commitment on my part to get into this book. For whatever reason, the first two-hundred or so pages were just okay for me. I didn't dislike them, but I also didn't love them.

After that, however, I started to really enjoy Princesses. While I wasn't expecting so much out of the book- plot wise, it was a lot deeper than I anticipated - and I don't know if that's because I misread the synopsis or forgot it, I'm glad it wasn't fluff.

Backes doesn't shy away from the issues in her debut. The negative, hateful, and/or bigoted things people say aren't glossed over and then politely referenced later when a reaction, consequence or some big resolution is needed. People say things that are (beyond) not nice and characters react - or sometimes fail to - in the moment. It's a really fantastic representation of how life can be.

Paige's struggle with whether she is who she is or who all these other people (her mother, her best friends, her boyfriend, etc) expect her to be was very well done. Things weren't black and white and they weren't cut and dry, Paige realizes a is this and b is that, the end. It really was a struggle with her. There were steps backwards and steps forwards - sometimes steps sideways, too.

The Princesses of Iowa also, absolutely, made me want to take a creative writing class. If you love writing, you'll love those parts of Princesses and if not, you just might find yourself considering taking up the activity!


While I applaud the author for tackling so many issues - and not always cleanly or nicely - I do want to mention something that I saw also mentioned in another review on Goodreads [Laura from Clear Eyes, Full Shelves]. There sexual situations/sex involved in the book where the female characters is drunk. I may be wrong but I think they're the only sex in the book. It's never really brought up as an issue - besides maybe someone thinking that a character drinks too much - how not cool that is.

And one of the situations in Princesses was an attempted assault that is never discussed or brought up again. There are probably a thousand ways to attempt going about addressing this SafeCampus.org has a blog that does it better.

While I get that teens get drunk and I get that teens have sex, if you're going to do a book that is going to tackle so many issues, either don't include them together or do try to somehow make it one of your issues.


Rating: 7/10


Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my e-galley for review

Don't Breathe a Word ~ Holly Cupala review

Don't Breathe a Word
HarperTeen
January 3, 2012
320 pages
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Joy Delamore's asthma is suffocating her. Her parents barely let her go anywhere, if they do they want her supervised by one of them. Her older brother has been charged with her care. They'll do anything to keep anything from happening to her. All this after Joy's asthma almost claimed her life.

Her new boyfriend promises them to he will take care of her. Soon, he's smothering Joy just as much - or more.

She can only take their 'caring' and Asher's intensity for so long before she has to get away. Joy leaves it all behind to seek out Creed, the one person who has offered her help; a homeless boy.

Leaving her old life behind Joy finds a new life on the streets of Seattle and learns more about her self in a short time than she ever did in her years in with her parents.


After reading Holly Cupala's first book Tell Me a Secret and finding it incredibly emotional, I very, very much wanted to read Don't Breathe a Word; I was thrilled when Harper sent me a copy to review. About a seemingly completely different subject matter - yet also a difficult one to approach - than Tell Me a Secret, Don't Breathe a Word is also about a young girl finding her own strength in the midst of a very difficult situation. One where a lot of people (of any age) could easily lose themselves.

Holly Cupala writes great novels of girl-power that are also just about you-power, whether you're female or male. I do think that Don't Breathe a Word will work better with male audiences (given the subject matter) than her first book.

Cupala's sophomore novel is much stronger and more consistent, if maybe less emotional, than her first book.

I had more of a personal connection with the story in Tell Me a Secret so it's possible that's why I found that tale to have more of an emotional impact. This one does have more of a subtle emotional kick all of the way through.

I'm thrilled the publisher gave me the chance to read and review this title and am already looking forward to Holly Cupala's next title (and recommending this one!).

Rating: 9/10


Thank you to HarperTeen for my copy for review

2012 Reading Challenges

I'm signing up (and planning on completing) three reading challenges this year - which is probably insane since I don't think I did any last year . . . They seem like great challenges, though:

(co-hosted by IceyBooks and I Like These Books)

My Goodreads shelf dedicated to the Challenge*
Books:
(lists are going to be filled in as I read them - tentative books are on my Goodreads shelves)
1) The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker ^
2) Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse by Lucas Klauss ^
3) Unraveling Isobel by Eileen Cook
4) The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E Smith
5) Fracture by Megan Miranda ^
6) Stolen Away by Alyxandra Harvey
7) Don't Breathe a Word by Holly Cupala ^
8) New Girl by Paige Harbison ^
9) Never Eighteen by Megan Bostic
10) I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
11) Belles by Jen Calonita
12) Purity by Jackson Pearce
13) The Night She Disappeared by April Henry
14)
15)
1b)
2b)
5b)
7b)
8b)
9b)

(hosted by Chick Loves Lit)

My Goodreads shelf dedicated to the Challenge*
Books:
1) Hallowed by Cynthia Hand
2) Don't Breathe a Word by Holly Cupala^
3) New Girl by Paige Harbison
4) Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin
5) The Right & The Real by Joelle Anthony
6) Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard
7) The Rivals by Daisy Whitney
8)
9)
10)
2b)

(hosted by The Story Siren)

My Goodreads shelf dedicated to the Challenge*
Books:
1) The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker (started in December)
2) Cinder by Marissa Meyere
3) Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse by Lucas Klauss
4) Fracture by Megan Miranda
5) Everneath by Brodi Ashton
6) Article 5 by Kristen Simmons
7) Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris
8) Embrace by Jessica Shirvington
9) The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze
10) Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne
11) Slide by Jill Hathaway
12) Love & Leftovers by Sarah Tregay








(hosted by Patricia's Particularity)

My Goodreads shelf dedicated to the Challenge*

Books:

1) Don't Breathe a Word by Holly Cupala

2) Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

There are a few challenges I'm still debating - signing up for - I'll add them to this post if (and when) I do sign up and join them :-)

^ These books are obviously still reviewed and will still have these tags in their posts, but I'd like my lists to not overlap so I'm trying not to count them for my total :)

Are you doing any fun/interesting/exciting challenges? I'd love it if you'd link me to them!

*books all subject to change :-)