YA Review: The Break

The Break by Nelsa Roberto

Published: March 2012 by Great Plains Teen Fiction
Genre: Contemporary YA
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 204 in my copy
Part of a series? Nope
Got via: The publisher sent me this along with two other books to review
Amazon  / IndieBound / Publisher's website since this is a smaller publisher

Summary (from goodreads): Watching Nonna 24/7 wouldn’t be such a big deal. We could do lots of stuff together. I just had to keep her busy.

Abby Lambert’s plans to ski with friends over spring break are ruined when her surgeon mother and stepfather announce they have to leave the country on an emergency medical mission. Instead of partying with her friends, Abby must stay home and look after her increasingly confused grandmother. At the nursing home where Nonna likes to play bingo, Abby runs into her notoriously aloof classmate, Kyle, who volunteers there. Despite his arrogance and mysterious past she finds herself drawn to him. Maybe staying home for spring break won’t be so bad — except for Nonna’s weird behaviour, which seems to be escalating.

Abby manages things pretty well … until one terrifying and desperate night, where life as she knows it changes forever.

Review: I was surprised by this one. You guys know I'm kind of hard to please when it comes to contemporary books, but this one worked for me. A whole lot of it was very cute and in general it was solid. I liked that so much of the book focused on Abby's relationship with her grandmother, especially, but also some with her mother. The romance was cute, if not my favourite part of the book.

I do kinda wish it were longer. But mostly it works as a short, quick read, and I think it would be good for some reluctant readers who aren't going to go for super long books. Might be a good book report book, you know? (...kids still do book reports, right? Or reasonable facsimiles? That has to be the only reason I get so many hits on certain reviews, lol.)

Plot Talk: So, basically, Abby's mom and step-dad end up going to Ecuador for a Doctors Without Borders thing and Abby has to skip a ski trip with her friends to look at her grandmother. Meanwhile, said grandmother is getting more confused, more frequently - and Abby's alone to deal with it.

(Somebody give me a high five for that!)

Anyways, it's a simple plot, but fairly strong. With the length of the book, a simple plot is the best idea so things don't get rushed. It was pretty well-paced, but occasionally I did wish that certain chapters or scenes had been given more time or a slower pace. A few did unfortunately come off somewhat rushed.

Characters: Abby was sweet. She absolutely loved her grandmother and wanted the best for her, even if she didn't really know what the best thing really was. She was well-intentioned, but didn't always make the best decisions and things got out of hand sometimes for her. That's realistic, you know? On the romance side, Kyle was okay. He was kind of underdeveloped and it felt like other characters told Abby (and therefore us) more about him than anything else. Part of me wishes the book had been longer so he could get more "screentime" without cutting into anyone else's.

Now on the other side of things, you have Nonna, Abby's grandmother. Very Italian, very much a grandmother. The book is very much about her and Abby and it's kind of heartbreaking watching her deteriorate and how Abby tries to deny it because she's scared. I also like how Abby and her mother start to work on their relationship, too. That was mostly towards the end, but it gave the ending a really hopeful note and having it be tentative and kind of new worked very well so that it wasn't clunky or overdone.

PG-13 stuff: The book does have a death in it. Not really anything for language, but there is some underage drinking and drug use. There is also an attempted sexual assault so be careful on that front. Be kind to yourself.

Cons, complaints, bad stuff, etc.: The length kind of comes back to me. If it had been maybe 50 pages longer, a lot of things could have shone more. I don't really think the length was bad, but it could have been better. Other than that, really, my only complaint is that sometimes the dialogue could be just a touch unrealistic. It was luckily rare, but still noticeable when it happened.

Cover comments: Eh. Out of the three books I got from Great Plains, this is my least favourite cover. I don't think it's terrible, but I'm not a huge fan of the floating head in the sky thing personally. It's really not bad, but I think it could be better.

Conclusion: The Break is a nice, quick read. There were some funny moments, some cute moments, some moments that made me sniffly. It did have a few little problems, but it was enjoyable and my favourite out of the three books I received to review, quite honestly. My over-all impression was that it was a solid book. And solid is good. A, heh, solid three and a half roses.



Other Notes:

- I couldn't fit it in, but there's a fair few "old people and teenagers can totally be friends" books. Some of them Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen, Being With Henry (I think, it's been a while since I read it), and, I'm assuming at least, since I just bought it and haven't read it yet, The Cardturner. Do you guys know any like that?

Peace and cookies,
Laina