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bardicbramley 's review for:
The Surface Breaks
by Louise O'Neill
CW for this book (though not gone into in following review): Hinted scenes of Sexual Harassment & Abuse. Rape; no explicit scenes. Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, and Familial Abuse. Familial death. Representation of Eating Disorders. Heavy hinting of LGBTQ+ hate and rejection. Abusive Patriarchal systems.
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I picked up this book from the Library on campus where I get my children’s books from and expected maybe an 7-11 age friendly novel. I was HUGELY mistaken.
I would place this in YA Fiction. In my personal opinion, 14+ although from my own reading experience as a more mature reader I can imagine Imight have read this around the age of 12 at a push.
The book deals with a lot of mature themes including those mentioned as content warnings as well as mild sexual exploration.
Every single one is handled in an honest, raw and sensitive way. The book is beautifully written. The scenes mentioned are uncomfortable to read and left me with that kind of sick feeling I have previously experienced with books specifically tackling the topics as their main themes. I applaud O’Niell for her ability to intertwine an already existing and well known folk story with the modern setting and realistic issues.
I took a while to really get into the novel. I was having some issues getting gripped and wasn’t really enjoying the fact that I knew how the story would unravel. Until we got well in, just over half way, and O’Neill really amped up all of her own twists and added fiction.
I was pleasantly surprised by the ending. I had hoped to avoid the cliché happy ending after all of the individuality that the book had added to the tale; I was not disappointed. I wouldn’t say the ending was /unhappy/, it was indeed a good outcome, but the ending I wanted to avoid was far far away.
I was left feeling empowered. Something I have rarely experienced from closing a book’s pages. And I would encourage anyone who has personal experience with any of the above (and feels comfortable exploring it in a safe setting) to give this book a chance. I think the emotional struggle of the harder scenes were entirely worthwhile for the healing process that I found at the end. A true credit to the intentions and ability of the author.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I picked up this book from the Library on campus where I get my children’s books from and expected maybe an 7-11 age friendly novel. I was HUGELY mistaken.
I would place this in YA Fiction. In my personal opinion, 14+ although from my own reading experience as a more mature reader I can imagine Imight have read this around the age of 12 at a push.
The book deals with a lot of mature themes including those mentioned as content warnings as well as mild sexual exploration.
Every single one is handled in an honest, raw and sensitive way. The book is beautifully written. The scenes mentioned are uncomfortable to read and left me with that kind of sick feeling I have previously experienced with books specifically tackling the topics as their main themes. I applaud O’Niell for her ability to intertwine an already existing and well known folk story with the modern setting and realistic issues.
I took a while to really get into the novel. I was having some issues getting gripped and wasn’t really enjoying the fact that I knew how the story would unravel. Until we got well in, just over half way, and O’Neill really amped up all of her own twists and added fiction.
I was pleasantly surprised by the ending. I had hoped to avoid the cliché happy ending after all of the individuality that the book had added to the tale; I was not disappointed. I wouldn’t say the ending was /unhappy/, it was indeed a good outcome, but the ending I wanted to avoid was far far away.
I was left feeling empowered. Something I have rarely experienced from closing a book’s pages. And I would encourage anyone who has personal experience with any of the above (and feels comfortable exploring it in a safe setting) to give this book a chance. I think the emotional struggle of the harder scenes were entirely worthwhile for the healing process that I found at the end. A true credit to the intentions and ability of the author.