Title: Spectacularly Broken
Series: N/A
Author: Sage C. Holloway
Genre: New Adult
Length: Novel (219 pages)
Publisher: Loose Id (March 3rd, 2015)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥3.5 Hearts
Blurb: Turns out naked and hungover on the floor is not the most strategically sound place to be when your dad comes home early. Take it from someone who learned the hard way: nineteen-year-old Lysander Shepherd – son of movie stars, spoiled brat, enthusiastic proponent of drugs and orgies… and now, unwilling resident of Oak Hill Manor, a retreat for troubled teenagers.
Before he knows what’s happening, his designer duds have been switched for tie-dye shirts in therapy team colors, and he is surrounded by an assortment of misfits: a timid nerd, a mute girl, a hyperactive kid… and captivating loner Cai Fields, who is admittedly pretty hot, but seems to hate the world in general and Lysander in particular.
Soon Lysander struggles with lies, withdrawal, and several uncomfortable revelations that he never intended to make, but he also gains surprising amounts of support right in the middle of secret late-night parties, fisticuffs over doing the dishes, and, of all things, croissant blackmail. Even as Cai and Lysander finally give in to the irresistible attraction between them and make a grasp for happiness, their darkest secrets remain – secrets with the power to destroy everything they’ve fought so hard to have.
ISBN: 9781623008659
Purchase Link: http://www.loose-id.com/spectacularly-broken.html
Reviewer: Aerin
Review: I have such a love/hate relationship with this book. There were parts that touched me deeply and others that seemed either cheesy or they downright pissed me off. And while I understand that the characters were teenagers (with the exception of the parents of course), their behaviour seemed too immature at times.
I’m having such a hard time pin-pointing exactly what I didn’t like, because overall this book was pretty good. But as much as I want to, I can’t give it 4 stars. I think the setting in which most of the story took place was what didn’t work for me. I simply don’t get the point of that “clinic” (Oak Hill Manor) or whatever it was. If it’s for troubled teens that abuse drugs and have way too much sex as a cry for attention, then you can’t go and mix them with other teenagers who were sexually abused as children and are now having difficulties integrating in the society.
And how about teenagers who suffer from the loss of a loved one, the one person who meant the most to them? What do they have in common with the rest of the teenagers at Oak Hill Manor? They were all simply too different from one another and didn’t have many things in common. So for them to be attending the same therapy sessions didn’t make much sense to me.
The writing was good, the grammar was stellar (and if it wasn’t, I was too focused on the story to notice any errors) and I definitely got the impression that a teenager was narrating the story. I do wish we would’ve gotten to know more about Cai ( including but not only, what determined him to pierce his dick and other body parts multiple times) and I wish there was an epilogue 10 years into the future, because I would’ve liked to see them as adults.
* I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com *