Broken

Broken
A.E. Rought
366 pages
Releases: January 8, 2013
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Source: the publisher
★★★☆☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Emma's in mourning for her boyfriend, Daniel, who died in a mysterious fall at a party.  She's devastated and a shell of her former self... that is until new boy to town Alex Franks makes an appearance.  But Alex and Daniel seem to have a freakish amount in common and Emma knows deep down there's something very wrong here.

Sounds good, right?  Broken is supposed to be a retelling of Frankenstein and I did see some similarities between the two books the farther I got into the plot, but the first thing that struck me in the first forty pages were some similarities to another book.... Twilight.  Emma isn't the strongest female character and Alex swoops in to save her.  When there's an accident and Emma must see a doctor, turns out it's Alex's dad.  Plusalso there's some insta-love.  I wasn't read to give up on Broken, persay, but I didn't have high hopes.

Broken redeemed itself for me the more I read, however.  The similarities to Twilight dropped off and the similarities to Frankenstein picked up.  What I was left with was a truly terrifying YA tale.  I don't want to give anything horrifying (in a fun way) away, but Daniel's death was one in a string of mysterious deaths of local teenage boys.  When we learn what happened to them and ultimately Daniel, it's very freaky.  And it begs the question - does Emma love Alex, or Daniel's memory?  Can Emma love Alex for Alex at all?  That was the part of the plot I was most interested.

The whole book climaxes in a dramatic scene that seems straight out of a horror movie.  I was enthralled in the end and stayed up way past my bedtime to finish Broken.

So you can see I have mixed feelings about Broken.  I waffled between three or four stars, but after a few days it's had time to settle and I think this is a three star novel.  The ending was fantastic, but the insta-love and Twilight similarities were a little much for me.  If you're a huge fan of Twilight and the like, I think you'll really enjoy Broken so give it a look!  Strange Chemistry is a great publisher and they've put out a lot of great titles, so check those out, too.  If you're looking for a strong female lead, The Assassin's Curse (Strange Chemistry) is a great way to go.