Back in January, I posted about a book called Breakable You by Brian Morton. My colleague Len V. read the book (in about an hour, it seems) over the weekend and wrote up a guest review for EDIWTB. Thanks, Len!
Here’s the review:
B
rian Morton’s Breakable You is one of those books I couldn’t put down. The characters are engaging, even though they’d really irritate me if they were my friends. I found myself wanting to know more about them and how this piece of their stories would end.
I loved how well Morton drew each character, particularly the ways he lets us see each character’s blind spots by having other characters relate the same events from different perspectives.
Since my mind works in this way, I also spent some time looking at the metaphorical meaning of the title for each character and came away amazed to see how close each of them (and any of us for that matter) are to breaking at any given moment. The most interesting stories often seem to come right at the line between breaking and not—like the most profound events in our lives.
I have two criticisms of the book.
First, a major, life-altering event happens in the novel…and it couldn’t have been more obvious what was coming. That said, the chapter containing that event was well-written and can easily be read as a metaphor for the lives of each of the characters. (Me and the metaphor again—what’s that about?)
Second, this novel suffers from the same plague that afflicts much contemporary fiction: a pat, somewhat trite and all-too-quickly wrapped up ending. I can’t decide if this type of ending is worse than the other very common type of ending—no ending at all. I’ve read a few books that seem to end with nothing more than a period, and that irritates me to no end.
I found myself not wanting to, and not being able to, put the book down, and I was bummed to get to the end. I definitely recommend Breakable You, and I can’t wait to get to Morton’s A Window Across the River.