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| Beautiful Broken Things - Sara Barnard |
But there is a darker and even more traumatic thread about a
teenage girl recovering from childhood abuse, desperately trying to put her
hateful past behind her (and frustratingly, for her, her friends, and the
reader, not always succeeding). It explores mental health problems (and even
better, pulls the ‘concept’ apart a bit), experiencing them yourself, and as a
friend, figuring out what the best way to help someone really is.
Many characters in the novel have knowledge of Suzanne’s
past, but they all keep it very hush-hush – especially and most notably the
adult characters. This adds an element of suspense to the plot and keeps you on
your toes the whole way through the novel. But, it also raises the questions of
blame and involvement in child abuse. When is it okay to interfere and stop
something? Will you be doing more harm than good?
Beautiful Broken Things is Sara Barnard’s debut novel and
has been nominated for the 2017 Carnegie medal.
An extra (and minutely spoilery) note
Suzanne is an interesting character but a lot of the characters
in the novel don’t warm to her. I didn’t either. I thought she was probably a
liar and that there was going to be a plot twist (and it says a whole lot about how we view the abused and abusers anyway) and this added an element of suspense and mystery. But, because of this, I did find myself asking the question ‘why’ in
relation to her aunt Sarah, quite a bit.
This link is a bit spoilery and it doesn’t answer my exact question, but
Sara Barnard (the author) has blogged about victimisation and blame.
Publication details: 2016, Macmillan Children’s Books,
London, paperback
This copy: for review from the publisher
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