Home
  • Home
  • Latest Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Authors & Artists
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Forums
  • Search

Beautiful Broken Things

  • View
  • Rearrange

Digital version – browse, print or download

Can't see the preview?
Click here!

How to print the digital edition of Books for Keeps: click on this PDF file link - click on the printer icon in the top right of the screen to print.

BfK Newsletter

Receive the latest news & reviews direct to your inbox!

BfK No. 216 - January 2016
BfK 216 January 2016

This issue’s cover illustration is from Elmer’s Little Library by David McKee. Thanks to Andersen Press for their help with this cover.

Digital Edition
By clicking here you can view, print or download the fully artworked Digital Edition of BfK 216 January 2016.

  • PDFPDF
  • Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version
  • Send to friendSend to friend

Beautiful Broken Things

Sara Barnard
(Macmillan Children's Books)
400pp, 978-1509803538, RRP £7.99, Paperback
14+ Secondary/Adult
Buy "Beautiful Broken Things" on Amazon

Caddie (short for Cadnam; don't ask!) and Rosie are best friends. Truly best friends though they now go to different schools. Then Suzanne arrives in Rosie's class - beautiful, dazzling, outrageous and troubled Suzanne. Can three girls be best friends? And what does being a best friend mean?

Sara Barnard in her debut novel is treading familiar ground; there is the shy, unassuming teenager still in her chrysalis, longing to be a butterfly; there is the catalyst with her troubled background and dangerous fascination; there is the first person narrator. The content is nothing new. And yet, Sara Barnard has managed to create a narrative that has a welcome freshness. Told from the point of view of Caddy but not in the (ubiquitous) present, the voice has a confidence and assurance that is impressive. These are very real girls that the reader can get to know. Certainly it is very much based in the contemporary world - references to shops, bands, technology that will inevitably date, but the emotions, situations, the characters will remain familiar. What is particularly refreshing is the absence of romance. If this sounds boring, it is far from it. At the heart of her novel, providing a rich emotional backdrop, is the friendship between three very different characters.

This is Sara Barnard's first novel. She is clearly a talent to watch.

Reviewer: 
Ferelith Hordon
5
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Help/FAQ
  • My Account