A review by pasta_pardner
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I'll start with the good things. The nonlinear narrative is nicely structured. There's an interesting symmetry to the characters' hardships. The twists are hard to predict, but have wonderful foreshadowing. 

But, as for the bad things... 

The romantic elements of this book are atrocious-- which is very, very unfortunate, because romance dominates a huge percentage of the pages, and almost all of the major plot points necessitate that the audience find the romantic subplots believable. At best, the "love scenes" feel cliche and uninspired. At worst, the romance makes the characters involved IMMENSELY unlikable. 

It seemed like the author was trying to craft flawed characters who are driven to conflict because of the intensity of their passions... yet the writing misses that mark by a wide margin. The lovers' passion falls flat. The characters feel more insufferablely trite than flawed. It's difficult to ignore the dissonance between what this novel is trying to be and what it actually accomplishes.

And, as an aside, some characterizations (namely,
Bobby
) felt extremely one-dimensional. I found myself rolling my eyes at multiple junctions throughout the novel.

Overall, my disappointments with 'Broken Country' far outweigh its redeeming qualities. Not an utter waste of time, but certainly not something I would recommend. 
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