Monday, August 25, 2014

Unbreak My Heart

Melissa Walker

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children
Publication Date: May 22, 2012
Pages: 232
Genre: Contemporary Chicklit
Source: Purchased from J&R Outlet

Sophomore year broke Clementine Williams’ heart. She fell for her best friend’s boyfriend and long story short: he’s excused, but Clem is vilified and she heads into summer with zero social life.

Enter her parents’ plan to spend the summer on their sailboat. Normally the idea of being stuck on a tiny boat with her parents and little sister would make Clem break out in hives, but floating away sounds pretty good right now.

Then she meets James at one of their first stops along the river. He and his dad are sailing for the summer and he’s just the distraction Clem needs. Can he break down Clem’s walls and heal her broken heart? 

Told in alternating chapters that chronicle the year that broke Clem’s heart and the summer that healed it, Unbreak My Heart is a wonderful dual love story that fans of Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Susane Colasanti will flock to.

This book sounded really good, but it just fell a little flat. It was a nice, quick read, but it was also really average.

I loved Clementine. She was sarcastic, but still had a soft side and I really like that she wasn't afraid to show her emotions. However, she spends most of the time on the ship moping and it did start to drag out after a while. I was actually more interested in the chapters that told what happened over the past year, but I did love the summer on the ship as well.

The whole Amanda/Ethan story line was a bit confusing because if they were both as good as friends with Clem as it seemed, they wouldn't have just dropped her without letting her explain and it was weird that Ethan never explained things to her. While this was one of my favorite aspects of the story, it just seemed rushed and unfinished with its random chapters.

James was great. He was cute and artsy and quirky. Their relationship was really predictable though. Their only obstacle was Clem's little sister, who was sweet at times, but could be really annoying at others.

Personally, I liked it much better than any Sarah Dessen and Den Caletti book, however there really wasn't anything special about this book. It was well-written with a spunky heroine, great emotion and a fun summer setting, but that description could be about any number of books. I really did like Unbreak My Heart, but it felt a little rushed and at only 230 pages it very well would have been. If this were longer and had more time to delve into what happened and didn't skip over so many days that it might have been a really good book.


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