GtPGKogPYT4p61R1biicqBXsUzo" /> Google+ Sheep Book Review: Broken by A.E. Rought | I Smell Sheep

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Sheep Book Review: Broken by A.E. Rought


Broken, by A.E. Rought, is the first book in her debut Young Adult series and unfortunately this series simply is not for me, in any way shape or form. Nice cover though! 

Plot:
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 mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetary and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.

When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she’s intrigued despite herself. He’s an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. 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. The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there’s something very wrong with Alex Franks.

And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks’ estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.

If you're unaware, I am not a fan of YA as a whole. There have been titles that I've read and enjoyed like Othermoon by Nina Berry and Poison Princess by Kersley Cole, but as a whole the genre is usually not for me. Broken remains in the "not for me" category, so keep that in mind before reading further. 

Broken starts out with some interesting promise, a young high school gal named Emma has lost her high school boyfriend in a tragic accident. Devastated beyond belief, yet trying to maintain some kind of normalcy in her life,  Emma's having a hard time letting go. When something like this happens, especially with your first love, I can totally sympathize, but that's where my love for her stops. One second she's manic and sassy and the next she's shy and coy. I get it, high school is a rough time for anyone with all those hormones cracking at full throttle, but it's over the top in the angst department and insanely dull to read, to the point of boredom. 

Aside from a very predictable plot, there's a storyline that is supposed to be intriguing and mysterious, and maybe for a teen reader it will be, but if by the second chapter I've got the entire story figured out, then it's too predictable. Mystery should not be solvable this early into a story, or it's just no fun. 

Alex steps into the scene as the new hot guy at school with some scars on his face playing into the whole beauty and the beast element. He's meant to be dangerous and sexy but he's got the whole I'm-emo-should-have-been-a-poet-sirca-1990 written all over his teenage forehead. Not into it. Save me from emo men with puberty crisis! Alex has also got daddy issues of the worst kind and how no one has busted his koo-koo for Coco Puffs father by now is beyond me. 

Overall there's just so much talk by the lockers, who's wearing what and dating who, does she like me, do I care if she does, sneaking out to go party at a club, what I ate for breakfast, how crazy my Mom is, the coffee shop, girl's gym class...gah, you get the point. 

For me, High School was fun and wild but I've been there and done that. I don't care who's sitting next to who in Mr. Whatever his name is class. I just don't. I need more meat to my plot and less corny campy phony characters and their teenage drama. 

If this story was meant to be dramatic and mysterious with a paranormal twist it fell flat for me. I would highly suggest checking around at what other reviews are saying. 


Getting 2 'who invited the zombie deer again?' Sheep 
KD 

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