Broken Things

When Vermont best friends Brynn, Mia, and Summer were 13, Summer was murdered under strange circumstances linked to the girls’ obsession with an old fantasy novel, The Way into Lovelorn. Five years after being publicly accused of, but never charged with, Summer’s murder, Brynn and Mia, still known as the Monsters of Brickhouse Lane, are determined to find out what really happened. Oliver (the Delirium Trilogy) tells her story in first-person chapters that alternate between Brynn, in rehab, and Mia, who is trying to dig herself out of her mother’s hoarded piles. In chapter interstitials, Oliver weaves excerpts from The Way into Lovelorn as well as the fanfiction the three girls wrote when they were young, designed to offer an additional layer to the mystery. This novel has all the elements of a thriller—an unsolved murder, long-held secrets and lies, grieving best friends—yet it lacks necessary tension, and Brynn and Mia’s voices read as overly similar. The novel falls short of producing an urgent story with clearly distinct characters, but it succeeds in creating an eerie setting and atmosphere. Ages 14–up. [em]Agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. (Oct.) [/em]