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A review by marilynw
She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be by J.D. Barker
5.0
From the beginning of this book, I didn't want to put it down. It's a long book but it certainly didn't seem long. It's full of interesting, multi faceted characters, people that make choices, right or wrong but also full of people that are caught in something that makes them do things they would never do, under other circumstances. I think that is the scariest thing about this book, the horror of losing control of everything that you are, everything that you believe, being just a passenger inside your body, with no options but to act a certain way.
Jack is such a likeable main character. He's an honest, hardworking, smart kid and he loves his Auntie Jo, he pines for his dead parents and relives vivid dreams about something that happened to him and them, when he was four years old. Auntie Jo says those visions are just dreams but they are so real and as time goes on, there is more and more proof that what Jack dreams really did happen.
Auntie Jo is another character I really like. Smoking herself to death, working hard at her job as a waitress, she loves Jack and as harsh, blunt, and crude as she is, her heart is gold. Her customers, neighbors, and co-workers know that Jo is a diamond in the rough, a good person and Jo will do anything for her nephew Jack.
Jack and Auntie Jo visit his parents graves very August 8th, the anniversary of their death. When Jack is 8 years old, he meets a beautiful, mysterious girl, Stella, who is sitting on a bench at the cemetery. From that first meeting, Jack is obsessed with Stella and can not get her out of his mind, thinking of her, drawing pictures of her, wanting to see her again. He continues to see her on that date for several years and then things get crazy, crazier than they already seem to be, with Jack's strange dreams and strange things happening around him.
In the end, so much is connected, connected to Jack's dreams, to Stella, to the people he knows. Who can Jack trust? Why can't his heart let go of Stella? What is it that draws them together and who are the people dressed in white, who are always with Stella?
What Jack learns is bigger than two people and there is danger and death in Jack's past and future that he sees coming, sees happening in the past, and he can't stop what is happening even as he is part of it. And, there is another child, a boy, who might be the most dangerous person of all, who wants Stella and will let nothing and nobody get in his way.
This is a great book to read with buddies because there is so much to discuss!
Published March 31st 2020
Thank you to the author, J.D. Barker, Hampton Creek Press, and NetGalley for this ARC.
Jack is such a likeable main character. He's an honest, hardworking, smart kid and he loves his Auntie Jo, he pines for his dead parents and relives vivid dreams about something that happened to him and them, when he was four years old. Auntie Jo says those visions are just dreams but they are so real and as time goes on, there is more and more proof that what Jack dreams really did happen.
Auntie Jo is another character I really like. Smoking herself to death, working hard at her job as a waitress, she loves Jack and as harsh, blunt, and crude as she is, her heart is gold. Her customers, neighbors, and co-workers know that Jo is a diamond in the rough, a good person and Jo will do anything for her nephew Jack.
Jack and Auntie Jo visit his parents graves very August 8th, the anniversary of their death. When Jack is 8 years old, he meets a beautiful, mysterious girl, Stella, who is sitting on a bench at the cemetery. From that first meeting, Jack is obsessed with Stella and can not get her out of his mind, thinking of her, drawing pictures of her, wanting to see her again. He continues to see her on that date for several years and then things get crazy, crazier than they already seem to be, with Jack's strange dreams and strange things happening around him.
In the end, so much is connected, connected to Jack's dreams, to Stella, to the people he knows. Who can Jack trust? Why can't his heart let go of Stella? What is it that draws them together and who are the people dressed in white, who are always with Stella?
What Jack learns is bigger than two people and there is danger and death in Jack's past and future that he sees coming, sees happening in the past, and he can't stop what is happening even as he is part of it. And, there is another child, a boy, who might be the most dangerous person of all, who wants Stella and will let nothing and nobody get in his way.
This is a great book to read with buddies because there is so much to discuss!
Published March 31st 2020
Thank you to the author, J.D. Barker, Hampton Creek Press, and NetGalley for this ARC.