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desiree930 's review for:
The Book of Broken Hearts
by Sarah Ockler
So I actually ended up enjoying this book more than I thought. Was it perfect? No. Not by a long shot. But was it more than I expected? In some respects, it definitely was.
What I liked:
1. The romance was cute, for the most part. I actually liked Emilio quite a bit, and he didn’t fall into the trope of being a major asshole to everyone except the main character, which is kind of what I expected when I started this book.
2. The exploration of Alzheimer’s. I’ve had close relatives struggle with this disease and this book did a good job conveying the helplessness that you feel as a loved one of someone with Alzheimer’s.
3. Jude’s voice. I can’t say I loved Jude and all of her decisions, but I thought the author did a decent job giving Jude a very unique voice. The writing was, on the whole, relatively simplistic, but Jude felt real to me.
What I didn’t like:
1. The vow/oath/pact. Whatever you want to call it, I don’t like that the romantic plot to this book focused so heavily on this silly pact a bunch a grown women forced their much younger sister to partake in. I also felt like the sisters read much younger than they were supposed to be.
2. Pacing. This book was too long. Cutting 50-75 pages wouldn’t have made a difference with the plot in the slightest, and it may have actually helped with the emotional impact, which was lacking for me after several repetitive chapters. I felt like this book really suffered in the second half due to the slow process pace.
3. Slut shaming. I was pleasantly surprised through most of this book at the lack of girl-on-Girl hate. Then Jude gets intensely jealous of a girl name Rosette and refers to her as ‘skankalicious’. Nice.
I’m honestly not even sure why her character was included. She only shows up in two, maybe three scenes, and serves no purpose other than to show that Emilio is really into Jude, to the point that he will ignore a hot girl draped all over him. She was nothing more than a prop. I don’t like that at all.
This wasn’t a terrible book, but it wasn’t great either. I wanted to love it so much because of the Alzheimer’s plot, but this didn’t fully work for me. If you’re looking for a YA romance with a bittersweet story of losing a parent, Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson would be my recommendation.
What I liked:
1. The romance was cute, for the most part. I actually liked Emilio quite a bit, and he didn’t fall into the trope of being a major asshole to everyone except the main character, which is kind of what I expected when I started this book.
2. The exploration of Alzheimer’s. I’ve had close relatives struggle with this disease and this book did a good job conveying the helplessness that you feel as a loved one of someone with Alzheimer’s.
3. Jude’s voice. I can’t say I loved Jude and all of her decisions, but I thought the author did a decent job giving Jude a very unique voice. The writing was, on the whole, relatively simplistic, but Jude felt real to me.
What I didn’t like:
1. The vow/oath/pact. Whatever you want to call it, I don’t like that the romantic plot to this book focused so heavily on this silly pact a bunch a grown women forced their much younger sister to partake in. I also felt like the sisters read much younger than they were supposed to be.
2. Pacing. This book was too long. Cutting 50-75 pages wouldn’t have made a difference with the plot in the slightest, and it may have actually helped with the emotional impact, which was lacking for me after several repetitive chapters. I felt like this book really suffered in the second half due to the slow process pace.
3. Slut shaming. I was pleasantly surprised through most of this book at the lack of girl-on-Girl hate. Then Jude gets intensely jealous of a girl name Rosette and refers to her as ‘skankalicious’. Nice.
I’m honestly not even sure why her character was included. She only shows up in two, maybe three scenes, and serves no purpose other than to show that Emilio is really into Jude, to the point that he will ignore a hot girl draped all over him. She was nothing more than a prop. I don’t like that at all.
This wasn’t a terrible book, but it wasn’t great either. I wanted to love it so much because of the Alzheimer’s plot, but this didn’t fully work for me. If you’re looking for a YA romance with a bittersweet story of losing a parent, Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson would be my recommendation.