I recently had the pleasure of reading 'Broken is Beautiful' on NetGalley, and I must say, it was an excellent choice. The author's words truly showcase how our past experiences, coupled with a lockdown and global pandemic, can bring out both the best and worst in us. As I delved deeper into the book, I found myself feeling a range of emotions towards the protagonist, Julia. At times, I felt a sense of warmth towards her, while at other times, I found her moralistic views and outlook on the world to be somewhat frustrating. Overall, I found 'Broken is Beautiful' to be a deeply thought-provoking and engaging read.the world.

The thing that initially drew me to this book was the interesting cover. The story itself was interesting to a point. The OA group was definitely something different and I like how Julia transforms and grows as picks up the broken pieces of her life. She is able to open up and put herself out there to make friends and to find her place in the world. I definitely could understand the pandemic as I lived through it, but it became very preachy and covered so much of the book in a very opinionated way. I think that this book definitely stalled out in so many parts and almost became a journal to try to get through. This became very redundant and did nothing to move the plot along. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

Julia is an artist who repairs and reimagines broken things into more beautiful objects. But Julia is also a hoarder. At the behest of her bank, as a condition of her mortgage extension, she reluctantly joins an OA (Obsessive Anonymous) support group. There she meets and reluctantly makes a number of unlikely friends, including a Ninja-Turtles-obsessed man and a doctor who eats plasterboard.

As the story unfolds, we learn more about Julia's backstory: her lack of stability as a child, the Canterbury earthquakes, and the devastating personal losses that trigger her descent into depression.

And it is in this world of isolation and despair, holding her fellow OA members at arms distance, Covid hits. Without close friends or family to discuss ideas with, we can see how easily it is for Julia to fall into the minefield of misinformation as debate over vaccines rages through the island nation.

But it is ultimately through OA, and the determination of those same members, that Julia finally comes to terms with her past traumas and is able to heal. And stop hoarding.

==

This was an interesting book. The premise was an interesting one, and the characters were real, with their flaws and their traumas and all their foibles that make us human. I liked the way this book shone a light onto generally taboo topics such as mental health issues and the coping mechanisms around them - denial, obsessions, and so on. And the backdrop of Covid really allowed us to see how people behave in isolation, with one seed of misinformation planted.

But.

Unfortunately I found the narrative style didn't work for me, and I found it difficult to connect with the book as a whole. The last quarter of the book was possibly the best, with more realistic dialogue and less diary-style chunks of prose. I really wanted to like the book, and it had great potential, but it didn't quite do it for me.

~Many thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review~

I found this book on NetGalley as a Read Now title. I really liked the premise of the book but got bogged down in some of the COVID topics such as vaccinations
. I guess my brain wasn’t prepared for it. I loved the friendships that were formed as well as reunited. The support group dynamics seemed real and I loved how each member disclosed their reason for having an obsession. Overall the book was good and I would read more from this author!

I thoroughly enjoyed Broken Is Beautiful by Jane Shearer. It was set during Covid in New Zealand and it was interesting to see characters go through the struggles during that time as well as the back and forth of information people were hearing.

Julia is a quirky character. Her flaws and emotional baggage make her relatable. I found myself rooting for her throughout the book. As her story unravels you discover her back story and what has formed her and it makes her more loveable.

All of the characters are endearing in their own way, especially when you learn more about their stories. This book deals with the topics of mental health and compulsions in a thoughtful and sincere way.

I will be posting this review on Instagram, Goodreads and Amazon.

DNF!
I'm so sorry, Jane Shearer, but I simply can't finish it. I stop at 16% of it, and I can't get attached enough of de history to finish it. Maybe is because of the time that it passes (2020) cause it brings bad memories for me. I wanna ready it in the future, but not now. Thank you very much for the arc,

Julia is an artist who not only fixes objects to give them their functionality back. but also to enhance their beauty in the process. After suffering multiple traumatic events, she decides to hide away in the house her Gran left her, ignore all the broken things she's hoarded over the years from her neighbours, and only work enough to afford food.

For years Julia lives like a beggar, and neglecting herself is almost an odd source of pride for her. But this state of indifference towards life can't last forever and it leads to the serious danger of losing her Gran's home, the only thing she still cares about. Then the bank gives her the opportunity to extend the deadline of her loan with the only condition that she get serious help and attend a support group for people with obsessions. This was the selling point for me: a cast of eccentric characters from a woman who eats plasterboard to a man who has brand names tattoed all over his body.

As compelling as this all sounds, I think the book could've used more editing. First off, there were so many details and thorough descriptions of Julia's week by week life that the story dragged on forever. Then all of a sudden the ending came and there were rushed attempts to tie the loose ends in the least amount of scenes possible, which was a shame as they deserved a conclusion that matched their lenghty development.

I also feel that the writing style was too literal and the dialogue seemed unnatural. One of the most evident examples was toward the end, when Julia calls an estranged loved one she hasn't seen in years and only says 'Hi' before the other person goes on a monologue for an entire page that conveniently explains why they grew apart and what they've been up to all this time.

Overall, I was disappointed with both the writing and the plot, and I don't have the energy to get into the anti-vaccine, 'fake news' nonsense. I wish I liked this more but it just wasn't what I expected.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“We all need to take charge of our own lives as far as we can and tell our own stories, figuring out how we want our plots to go. Don’t let circumstance or other people tell your story for you.”

Here we learn about Julia, about her life, traumatic experiences, and her as a person. she is obsessed with broken things, she loves to fix them and make a use out of them. But sadly [and understandably], she doesn’t do the same to her own mental pain and suffers, she simply leaves them broken, not only because it’s less exhausting, but also because she never knew a better way. She goes to a OA sessions, where she meets people with weird obsessions, just like her. And there a new chapter of her story begins.

This is so beautifully presented, the transition from the present to the past was wonderfully and satisfyingly smooth and amusing, I truly felt like the author knew when to take us to unravel the past, and when to leave us in the living moment. I picked this book while I was in a reading slump, so I couldn’t get in the story easily, but once I did, I absolutely devoured it.

There is lots of details, mostly not very necessary to the plot, but absolutely so to the vibes and depth of the story.. But from time to time, the details become boring, some paragraphs could’ve been shortened, especially the conversations.. also, some of the reactions (specifically Julia’s) seemed cartoonish and confusing, I thought maybe the author couldn’t portray it well enough. I also thought the ending was a little bit rushed, things could’ve happened more gradually other than everything suddenly becomes good.

What I think was the most dulling was that lots of times it was spoon feeding me information about Covid, normally I wouldn’t mind reading about the pandemic as an event in novels, but that was basically an essay about covid, the quarantine and the vaccine, and long exhausting conversations about the politics behind it. it was too much for a novel.

Nonetheless, what a beautiful read! I think I would read what the author would offer next.

Trigger Warnings: Earthquakes, Covid-19, Death of children, child abuse, eating disorder (not acknowledged), mention of suicide, and neglecting &abusive parents.

I wasn't sure whether I would be ready for a pandemic related book, but there was no need to worry. Julia and her friends are such interesting charachters with backstories you want to discover. Julia was once a kintsugi and repair queen, but descended into apathy because of the consequences of a series of earthquakes. Then her bank forces her to attend a support groep, but a few weeks later the pandemic hits.

While the characters try to deal with COVID-19, you discover the stories of Julia and her friends and acqaintances. Sometimes I felt like this would have even worked better if some of the stories would have been elabaroted on more,

However Shearer captures the different emotions people had during the pandemic really well: people who can't wait to be jabbed, anti-vaxxers, the doubts, angst and anxiety, people trying to comprehend the world around them by believing in fake news...

At the same time it's also very insightful to read how people deal with a devastating earthquake. You often see this on the news, but what you don't always realise is the impact it has on people's lives.

Thank you for this lovely ARC!

Broken is Beautiful is the story of Julia, a woman who, after losing something very valuable, begins to neglect various areas of her life to the point of accumulating broken objects.
To avoid losing Gran's house, she starts going to a support group to start putting her life in order.
Opinion:
To be very honest, at first it was hard for me to connect with Julia, but as the story progresses and she opens up, it's easier to connect and let the story flow.
I'm left with the precious message that stories are a powerful tool to heal and connect with other people.
Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC.
My rating: 3.5 stars

A beautiful story about overcoming obstacles and heartache. Forced to attend an obsessive compulsives group to keep her home Julia attends the group.
Julia's life story is a roller coaster of lows with few highs but she eventually makes friends.
I loved the story about making repairs or making something new out of broken things and giving them new purpose.

Julia has a habit of tucking things she isn’t ready to think about or deal with into boxes and ignoring them.

This has led to her home literally being overflowed with boxes of things awaiting repairs.

Facing foreclosure of her home, Julia begins to attend a support group and going through the mountain of boxes. All while Covid becomes a thing.

In fits and starts Julia rediscovers her love of making something old new and special and begins to process a terrible loss years before.

While no characters are exactly lovable, they’re flawed in a realistic way. The piece when Julia reveals the doll with story she created got me right in the feels.

Broken is Beautiful
by Jane Shearer
This book seemed very slow in spots. People are going to a support group for help – Obsessives Associated. O.B., such as eating plasterboard, amassing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and brand-name tattoos.collecting dolls.
Each member has their views on vax or not vax during covid.
Julie, the main character is difficult to get a handle on. She is difficult to allow anyone into her world or to allow anyone to be a friend unless she is the only friend. It was quite a chore to like her as I got to know her more and more.
The book was ok for me but felt odd to get much of any real feel of anyone but Julie. More like a diary than a story of making as covid times.

Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for providing an advanced copy of this book.

Loathe as I am to begin a review on a lackluster note, I feel that the only thing I can really, truthfully say here is: the book is fine.

To start with the not-so-positives: 'Broken is Beautiful' is a fiction debut from an author who typically writes nonfiction, and that does seem to come across in the style. It feels more like a diary than a narrative the majority of the time, and the dialogue sometimes feels unnatural. You'll read a line and, when trying to imagine hearing it out loud in a real conversation, think, "no one would say that this way in real life." That type of brevity and "cleaning up" of colloquial speech patterns is second nature to nonfiction writers so I do understand where it comes from, but it does make for some awkward-sounding interactions for a fiction novel.

Additionally, it doesn't feel like there is much of an overarching "point" or message here. "Embrace life" or maybe "be willing to keep an open mind" would be the closest I could think of. But while those are good sentiments that I agree with in life, I'm not sure they're enough to carry a full novel. There are points where there is no action at all and instead there is merely the main character's confused stream of consciousness around COVID-19 and the world it's created - which would have been prescient had the book come out in the midst of all of us feeling that anxiety, but already feels dated a few years removed from lockdown.

But, on the positive side: I feel that the source of Julia's trauma - the death of her daughter and the guilt she feels over it - were realistically portrayed. She's a flawed protagonist because this horrible thing has happened to her and she reacts in human ways to it, and that makes her relatable. The strained relationships with her mother, brother, and friends also feel very real for the same reasons. Sometimes in fiction we want everyone to just communicate perfectly at exactly the right moments to reduce frustration, but that's very often not true to life. This book is, in that regard. Having a main character who acts like a real person, flaws and all, is a good thing, especially when it comes to the sort of introspective fiction this story is aiming to be.

I also particularly enjoyed the physical descriptions of objects in this book. The broken things that Julia mends, her methods of fixing them and making them more unique and beautiful in the aftermath of their ruin, and the messy details of Gran's cluttered, damaged, overgrown house are all evocative and lovely. In my opinion, the moments of physical description are the best writing of the book.

Overall I'd say it was a good effort at the literary/women's fiction genre, and representative of the new wave of COVID and post-COVID media that we're definitely going to continue seeing for a while longer as people process that time in their life.

I don’t know what I was expecting from my first read from NetGalley, but ‘Broken is Beautiful’ was a wonderful book to start with. The book really pointed out to me how past experiences combined with a lockdown and global pandemic can really bring out the worst and best in us. At times I felt warmth towards the protagonist Julia and other times frustrated with her righteous views and outlook on the world.
The beginning of Broken is beautiful starts (where I imagine most of us would identify as) at the start of lockdown and I shocked myself with reading the book as I generally stir away from anything that brings up the subject of Covid and the pandemic, however I was pleasantly surprised with the read.
We get to know Julia more throughout the story and at times find her completely relatable and at others frustrating. The beauty of the book is that I can imagine different readers will have different views and opinions on characters due to their beliefs, which will give each of us a different opinion of the book itself. There is a sad momentum to the story, and it is also not your stereotypical love story. I had a fair few laughs at some of the characters and the relatable questions Julia finds herself asking in her head. I would highly recommend this book if you are liberated enough to take on different viewpoints and also if you are a feel good self discovery lover.