Reviews

Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky

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themoonandthestars's review against another edition

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medium-paced

0.75

fbroom's review

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5.0

The story of Sacha who is full of anger. She blames herself for not saving her mother from her stepfather. She doesn’t want to forget or forgive. She is cynical. She plans her revenge against her stepfather although she was really only hurting herself the most. This was a page turner and a quick read for me. I enjoyed it as I enjoyed her other book “The hottest dishes from the tartar cuisine”.

freddie's review

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3.0

This book starts out very strong, introducing Sascha, an angry teenager whose mother was killed by her abusive stepfather. So Sascha plans to kill him once he's out of prison. But then the story fizzles away with a series of implausible events. There's a major side plot that I think this book could do away with.

audaciaray's review

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4.0

I have been having a bit of a rough/cranky week, and I think reading this book has made me more cranky. Which is a good thing, maybe? Sascha, the main character and narrator, is a really intense and angry teenager, and for good reason: her ex-stepfather gunned down her mother and her new boyfriend in front of Sascha and her two younger siblings. The novel sprouts around Sascha's rage: at men, at the media representation of the murders, at her situation in life, at... everything. It's a really stunning, dark novel that made me queasy and anxious often. Gotta love books that have a visceral effect.

I read this after loving Alina Bronsky's Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, and I am totally sold on her. I will most definitely read whatever she writes next!

luisasm's review

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3.0

I liked this book far more at the beginning. It lost itself at the end. That being said, I do think Sascha is a good character, as full of cliche teenage angst as she is. At least her angst is relatively justified. In my eyes, the main focus of this book was Sascha's anger. Her actions are defined by anger, and not anger that's hiding other feelings. She is absolutely furious about her life and we don't get to see female characters that often that get to be that angry. So I appreciated that. I also appreciated that there were a lot of supporting characters that seemed real. But then I was disappointed that none of it really seemed to go anywhere. It fizzled out.

marie_gg's review

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3.0

Sascha, the emotionally scarred 17-year-old protagonist of this gritty novel, has two dreams in life: to write a book about her mother and to kill the man who killed her mother and her boyfriend in a blood-drenched murder (in front of her children). It's an impressive first novel and it feels very European urban in nature.

Read my full review here: http://mariesbookgarden.blogspot.com/2010/10/broken-glass-park-russian-immigrant.html