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The book didn’t have that much of a plot, it was really simple. Which is never a good thing. And sometimes the romance kind of makes up for it if it was well written and draws you to the book. Except that wasn’t the case, the romance was sweet but nothing was actually there, it wasn’t intriguing like I thought it would be. I honestly just finished the book because I thought something interesting would actually happen. Spoiler alert.. I was wrong. Also the methodology explainations are important, though will not be new for the scientists reading the book, I hope. The Rihanna kind? You’ve got to be joking me, because Rihanna is – what? – twenty-two and you’re –’
In Vermette's gritty debut novel, a nominee for Canada's 2016 Governor General's Award for fiction, a thirteen-year-old girl is brutally assaulted in a snowy vacant lot. It is late at night, and a young mother whose house abuts the land, views the scene, "freezes", and then calls the police. One of the officers, Tommy Scott, like both the victim and the witness to the crime, is Metis (a person of mixed aboriginal and European ancestry). He is determined to get to the bottom of what occurred. Crimes involving "Nates" (natives) are ho-hum, routine occurrences to Officer Christie, Scott's older, white, police partner. (A stereotypically overweight, slow-moving frequenter of Tim Horton's coffee shops, Christie is weary of the messiness of people's lives and policing in general). One senses there is no real will to investigate much of the crime that goes down in this part of town. Racism simmers here in north-end Winnipeg. Moskowitz had a really tight hold on the plot for the first three quarters of the book, so it was a shame to see it unravel all over the place like it did at the end.I didn’t dislike the writing as much as other people that have read it had but the characters were so one dimensional that even if the dialogues were 10/10 i wouldn’t be able to read the with a straight face. The things I liked about this novel were the realism of the situation, the strong women, and the family unity that is shown as they come together to support these young women. The large cast of characters, however, kept me from connecting to any of them in particular. There was much dialogue, conversations that seemed excessive, in fact much of the book seemed to be made up of conversations between various family members. Sharing their stories and family situations. Unfortunately I didn't find much in them that I found interesting. My favorite character was the grandmother, they called her the kakoom, and she was the matriarch of the family. I appreciated her quiet wisdom. Moskowitz has a poet’s sensibilities in her tight, terse sentences, choosing every word for its merit rather than the beauty of its sound as it rolls off the tongue. If you have a sensitivity for the “F” bomb (which the writer uses with regularity), Break might turn you off, but understand that her choice to include such language is completely in alignment with Jonah’s character. The dialogue is true to type, and honest in its presentation. More compelling is the fact that Moskowitz wrote Break from an entirely male perspective, while she is female, not a small feat in any literary undertaking. activityBookingConfirmationUrl":"/content/centerparcs/uk/en/jcr:content.activityBookingConfirmation.json", A big thank you to Edelweiss, House of Anansi Press and Katherena Vermette for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Thank you to Edelweiss, Ingram Publisher Services and Katherena Vermette for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Books that meet industry standards but are also unique and personal? Brilliant! The next step is to enrich your existing content with: The Break is an emotional, powerful and intense literary thriller about the strength and love that connects a family of women and friends together, while dealing with a violent act. The Break refers to a field between two rolls of houses but also refers to broken relationships. Once you’ve defined your paragraphs’ styling, you can customize your font styling with the following options:
There are compelling characters - Phoenix & Tommy especially - complex, rich, heartbreaking - but many of the others including Stella, Lou, Paul & Cheryl, were significantly less well-developed and in the end, all sounded very similar and stereotypical so that I was unable to form any attachment or even really care about them. And I just didn't think she needed the POV from a dead woman - although these were some of the most beautifully written passages, they distracted me and constantly pulled me out of the story. What an incredible debut! Moskowitz is an extremely talented writer! Break was full of fantastically portrayed three dimensional characters and an insane central idea. A goal to break every bone in your body? How does that not pique your curiosity. Well, it did mine and this lead to me completely devouring the entire novel in one setting. The author, Katherena Vermette, however, did a nice job exploring a story about familial dynamics and Manitoban women. This is not a subject I had read about previously and I appreciated the insight. But why break bones? Why not try to snort a line of gummi bears and get a face tattoo like a normal person?
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