I was so swept up in this book, I forgot to take notes for my review! I'm shocked that we're not hearing more about this book. Broken Glass Park is a story told from the point of view of seventeen year old Sascha Naimann.
Sascha, the main character, may only be seventeen, but she is gritty, feisty and angry enough to make the reader question whether or not we should root for her. She is described in the book as "prickly" and "defensive" but we catch glimpses of her softness, especially towards her two younger siblings, that make us fall in love with her. Sascha struggles between her age and her maturity, as she was thrust into adulthood way before the murder of her mother. I couldn't help but sympathize for her situation - she watched her mother be gunned down by her stepfather, Vadim, who was nothing but awful to all three of the children - but at the same time she takes risks and is at times utterly cruel to the rest of the world. Maybe she feels she has the right, since the world has been nothing but cruel to her.
I have to share the first few lines with you:
"Sometimes I think I'm the only one in our neighborhood with any worthwhile dreams. I have two, and there's no reason to be ashamed of either one. I want to kill Vadim. And I want to write a book about my mother. I already have a title: The Story of an Idiotic Readheaded Woman Who Would Still Be Alive If Only She Had Listened To Her Smart Oldest Daughter."
Broken Glass Park is an amazing debut novel unlike anything I had ever read before. This is one of those books that I never would have discovered if I didn't have Alison's Book Marks. Many thanks to Regal Literary for bringing Alina Bronsky into my world!
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