Review: Breaking by Danielle Rollins
SYNOPSIS:
Monsters lurk where you least expect…
Charlotte has always felt ordinary compared to her two best friends at the prestigious Weston Preparatory Institute. Not enigmatic and daring like Ariel or beautiful and brilliant like Devon, Charlotte has never quite met the standards of the school—or those of her demanding mother. But with Ariel and Devon by her side, none of that mattered. They became the family she never had.
Until the unthinkable happens—Ariel commits suicide. And less than a month later, so does Devon.
Everyone accepts the suicides as tragic coincidences, but Charlotte refuses to believe that. And when she finds mysterious clues left behind by Ariel, Charlotte is thrust down a path that leads to a dangerous secret about Weston Prep. There’s a reason Weston students are so exceptional, and the people responsible are willing to kill to protect the truth…
REVIEW:
*Book Received in Exchange for Honest Opinion/Review*
This story was interesting to say the least. So after reading the synopsis and seeing the stunning cover, I decided to give this book a go. You see Charlotte’s friends committed suicide and everyone seems to believe she is part of some suicide pact. Weston Prep is a small school so the gossip mill is churning full force and making school even worse. Now in terms of character development, Charlotte is a fickle mess. She never really grows or moves past the death of her friends, she seems trapped by figuring out what really happened to them.
As the story progresses, it becomes blatantly obvious who is behind all this…I mean unless the author is going to go all Scooby-Doo on me and a rando-character I never met is behind it all, we all know the mastermind is. Which means that lovely little quote about monsters in the synopsis is wrong! I enjoyed watching the mystery play out, none-the-less, but it was not fluid. The novel felt somewhat choppy, like I was reading a first draft where the author was just blurting out thoughts but they never flowed into a harmonious story.
In terms of the plot, the whole suicide mystery was more than enough to substantially carry the story. Yet….the author brings in some romance which is just awful. It doesn’t fit, it is a hot-mess and if you read the story you will understand why. The ending was extremely abrupt, I think the author wrapped everything up from plot climax to ending in 2 chapters and an epilogue. Which is you have read any of my reviews, you know is a big no-no for me. Give me some closure, I don’t want more questions than answers. So the mystery wasn’t bad but the book needs a lot of fine tuning.
LINKS:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
