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A review by kaylabooks17
Beauty of the Broken by Tawni Waters
5.0
This book took me on an emotional roller coaster. It is written from the point of view of a 16 year old girl who has grown up in a conservative, small town. There are complaints about Mara seeming too childish to be 16, but that’s the brilliance of the author…that is on purpose. Mara, growing up in the town she did with the people she did is NOT going to be as smart or advanced or have the critical thinking skills that most of us avid readers have…she’s kind of dumb…that’s not the authors fault that is a side effect of growing up where she does. She’s nice to Henry one second and mean to him the next because she doesn’t know better, not because of poor writing.
The book is advertised as a LGBTQIA+ novel but it is so much more than that. It is the story of a girl who struggles to make sense of her world. The preacher and her dad and Elijah all seem like “evil” people and Iggy and Mara and Xylia all see like “good” people and this isn’t because the author can’t create gray but because MARA can’t create gray…we are looking through her eyes. The eyes of a 16 year old. The eyes of a girl who is struggling to think for herself for the first time in her life. We get to experience that struggle and travel the rough road with her. We get to experience that childlike hope she has each time she thinks her daddy has changed and we get to be “shocked not shocked” when he is exactly who we know him to be. Her mom is great. We are able to tell from her interactions with people and Mara’s internal dialogue that her mom is doing what she needs to stay alive for her kids. She knows she’s a piece of —— mother, but she tries. She fails basically every single time but she tries.
While on the surface this book seems juvenile, under developed, and stereotypical, it’s anything but that. This book has done a phenomenal job at getting into the literal head of an average conservative raised small town girl who has a big town heart. If you thought it was juvenile, if you thought it was under developed, if you thought it was stereotypical, count your lucky stars you’re smart enough to see things like that…Mara didn’t have that luxury. No one in her town does…that’s the point.
The book is advertised as a LGBTQIA+ novel but it is so much more than that. It is the story of a girl who struggles to make sense of her world. The preacher and her dad and Elijah all seem like “evil” people and Iggy and Mara and Xylia all see like “good” people and this isn’t because the author can’t create gray but because MARA can’t create gray…we are looking through her eyes. The eyes of a 16 year old. The eyes of a girl who is struggling to think for herself for the first time in her life. We get to experience that struggle and travel the rough road with her. We get to experience that childlike hope she has each time she thinks her daddy has changed and we get to be “shocked not shocked” when he is exactly who we know him to be. Her mom is great. We are able to tell from her interactions with people and Mara’s internal dialogue that her mom is doing what she needs to stay alive for her kids. She knows she’s a piece of —— mother, but she tries. She fails basically every single time but she tries.
While on the surface this book seems juvenile, under developed, and stereotypical, it’s anything but that. This book has done a phenomenal job at getting into the literal head of an average conservative raised small town girl who has a big town heart. If you thought it was juvenile, if you thought it was under developed, if you thought it was stereotypical, count your lucky stars you’re smart enough to see things like that…Mara didn’t have that luxury. No one in her town does…that’s the point.