Book Title:Broken Glass
Author: Tabitha Freeman
3 out of 5 stars
Plot Background:
Following a tragedy,
Ava Darton repeatedly tries to take her own life, and finds herself
involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. What she finds in the mental
hospital, is not what she thought she would ever come across. In the asylum she
makes friends and finds that her descent into insanity doesn’t have to be a
decent at all. She has to learn how to deal with the greatest loss she has ever
experienced, and she has to find that deeply rooted seed of hope deep within.
My Thoughts:
My feelings are a little mixed on this book. I will start
with the strengths:
I liked the idea of going behind the walls of a mental
hospital, it is a very interesting subject. I loved Sylvia Plath’s The Bell
Jar, it has always been one of my favorite books, and I loved that this book
had a lot of references to Plath and her work (for example, the other patients
call her Sylvia for a short time because she, like Sylvia Plath, tried to kill
herself three times).
One thing that has always freaked me out a little about
books of this nature is that, for example, when I read The Bell Jar, I found
myself relating so closely to the main character that I start to wonder am I
really crazy too? Well, especially the first half of this book, I had those
same thoughts. I found myself thinking that I was so much like Ava, I too have
a boyfriend who I love with my entire heart, and losing him would send me into
a spiral just as it did to Ava- I would probably lose it worse than Ava, I
would become Mrs. Havisham. I realize this may seem like I am rambling, but my
point is that at least in the beginning, it is written in a way that makes you
really think.
I also wanted to point out that the writing style was very
interesting. I am not sure if this was on purpose, but if it was, it was done
well—the beginning, in the parts where she is with Tyson and her mind is on
shallower thoughts, or even when she begins to become depressed, the sentences
are shorter, the paragraphs are spaced out more. But as she progresses and she
starts to really think through her actions and really dig into her emotions,
the paragraphs grow longer, the breaks in between paragraphs shorter. It really
added something extra to the book, intentional or not, it was done very well.
Now, having said the positives there were a few things that
made me feel less enthusiastic about the novel. I had trouble with the pacing,
the beginning, the first 150 pages or so (or really the whole “Tyson” section)
had me on the edge of my seat. I read the first half in a matter of hours,
unable to put it down. Sobbing when the tragedy happened. But then, it almost
seemed to have just, stopped. One would think that a mental hospital would have
a lot more, drama? Intrigue? But really it felt like as she sat in her room and
slept, my eyes began to droop as well.
Another thing I didn’t like as much, was, to my surprise,
Ava in the second half of the book. I don’t want to say that she is a drama
queen, and going through what she went through was traumatic, I am not saying
it would be easy to get over, but at some point I started to tire of her
whining and I started to feel like you can only play the victim for so long.
For the way she was acting, you would think that something much worse had
happened to her. Having said that this is where a lot of my mixed feelings come
in, because she was unstable in the first place, and she needed a reason to be
in there for the plotline. I also felt that with Ava, even when she starts to
get better and starts to get to know Conner(her therapists son and a student
intern), she never really got to know herself. She relied on her boyfriend so
heavily, and she really had no idea of her identity apart from him, which to me
seems a bit unhealthy, and then she starts to lose herself in someone else and
she is “all better”. I tend to like my protagonists to end up stronger (like
Katniss Everdeen) so at the end, I felt like it would only be a matter of time
until the character ends up back in the ward.
Overall, the book was not bad, not phenomenal. If you liked
The Bell Jar I would recommend this novel, but if psychological drama isn’t
your cup of tea, then I’d leave it be.
As always here is a link to the Kindle edition of the book
or you can use the Amazon searchbox on the side of the screen:
Happy Reading !!!
(Disagree? Agree? Sound off in the Comments!!!)
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