Customer Reviews

Broken Soup

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The story in BROKEN SOUP starts immediately from page one.

While Rowan is in line at a shop, a strange boy tries handing her a picture negative. He's insistent that she has dropped it, but Rowan is positive that it's not hers. When he doesn't let up, Rowan takes the negative from him, but once at home, she throws it in the trash. It isn't until an unfamiliar girl approaches Rowan in the lunch room that she gives a second thought to the negative.

The girl, Bee, is a few years older and would be the same age as her brother, Jack, if Jack were still alive. It turns out Bee saw the encounter at the shop and asks Rowan what was on the negative. Rowan retrieves it from the trash, and Bee develops it.

What shows up stuns Rowan. It's a picture of her brother. But this is not a picture that she has ever seen before. How did the unfamiliar boy know that it belonged to her, even when she hadn't known herself that it even existed?

From there, the story evolves into Rowan's friendship with Bee, and her future encounters with the unknown boy, Harper. Harper is an American traveling around Europe. He hadn't planned on staying in town as long as he has, but he's enthralled with Rowan and can't bring himself to leave.

BROKEN SOUP is the heartbreaking story of a girl and her family's attempt to recover from the untimely death of Jack. Jack was the shining star in the family. When he died, so did the family. Rowan's father has left. Her mother is practically comatose with grief. It's up to Rowan to keep herself and her little sister, Stroma, surviving.

Finding the negative begins a series of events that may either heal Rowan's family once and for all, or be the last straw that makes it crumble into permanent destruction. The story is beautifully written and will surely touch the heart of all who read it.

Reviewed by: Jaglvr

I'm so happy to see that Broken Soup is now available in America! I much prefer the British cover but there's a warm, original, intelligent novel lurking beneath the current more nondescript cover - a book about loss, friendship, family, memory, a book with three dimensional characters that you'll admire and care deeply about and be sorry to say goodbye to.

The year is young but I'm already betting this will be one of my favourites reads of 2009.

This book had a lot of potential. The idea with the photo is intriguing, and Rowan's whole situation sounded interesting to read about. The plot is what kept me turning the pages - I loved the plot twists and the many ideas - but I had quite a few problems with the rest of Broken Soup.

I think my main problem was that the message got lost in the many aspects of the plot. I don't mean that a book shouldn't have many storylines, but they should support each other to make a whole and create a message to convey to the reader. The different storylines in Broken Soup - Jack's death, Rowan's morhter's depression, her friendship with Bee, her romance with Harper, her role as the responsible one in the family - all seemed to be conveying different messages that had nothing to do with each other. Maybe that would have worked if the book were longer and the storylines were elaborated on more, but like this it just left me confused about what Jenny Valentine wanted to say with this book.

The writing isn't great, but not terrible, either. There was nothing all that noteworthy about it. At parts it sounds like the author wants to sounds poetic and deep, but that didn't fit to the rest of the style and Rowan's voice and seemed contrived.

The characters are okay. Rowan's character is pretty good, and I liked reading how the situation in her family affected her. For some reason, though, I never really connected with her, and for me, if I can't relate to the main character, that takes a lot from a novel. Some of the secondary characters are better: I loved Harper - how he helps Rowan is really cute. Jack is a good character, too; easy to imagine. Bee's characterization is lacking, though. Rowan always tells us she's so special, etc. but the reader is never really shown what's so great about her. She seemed pretty average to me. The parents didn't really seem like characters, more like plot devices, but I guess I can't really criticize that - they're never around, and that was the point of that storyline.

I don't usually comment on the cover of a book if I don't like it, but on this one I have to. Not only is it ugly (in my opinion), it also doesn't fit the story whatsoever. It looks like something someone doodled during class without a care in the world, which is the opposite of Rowan's situation. It doesn't show the reader anything about the seriousness of this book.

All in all, this book was pretty disappointing. There were a lot of good ideas in there, but the execution is clumsy. The writing and the characters are only okay, and Broken Soup fails to convey a message with too - it seemed like the author wanted to pull the novel in too many directions without elaborating on the different storylines. Most of the other reviews I've read for this one, though, are positive, so maybe you'd enjoy it more than I did.

This is a superb book. After reading the outstanding 'Ant Colony' I was interested to read more from this author and it doesn't disappoint.
The story is a real social commentary on modern life with a young carer, Rowan, holding her broken family together with her distant ill mother and younger sibling to care for. This story should resonate strongly with children who have encountered bereavement and depression or are caring for older and younger generations of their family. Teenagers lucky enough to be untouched by such events will also benefit from the strong storyline and perhaps be more aware of the trials their fellow classmates may be suffering. This is a very much 'what goes on behind closed doors' story while the characters put on an everyday brave face to the world.
While this book has an outstanding theme and storyline it is also immensely enteraining and beautifully written. There is nothing preachy or cringeworthy. It is shown from a teenagers point of view, mistakes and all and is such an accurate reflection of life.
This is positive book despite the the negative events and has an uplifting ending.
Highly recommended for 13+ but please be aware there are some graphic events and themes that may be upsetting to some teens.

This was one of the more touching YA books I've read.

Occasionally, I felt that the style was a bit too distracting, pulling one's attention away from the story to the more stylistic, verbal elements, instead of emphasizing the plot, the characters and the message. It may be that this is because I was translating the book and thus paid more attention to stylistic elements than I would if I were only reading it for pleasure. On the other hand, one could also argue that the unique style matches perfectly the unusual protagonist, Rowan, and the remarkable story of grief, lost childhood, growing up and finding hope.

The characters in the book are all very memorable. Particularly Rowan with her big heart, tolerance, acceptance and understanding for everything and everyone. She's a much better person than I am and I wished, many times throughout the book, that I could be a bit more like her. But she's not the only character that stays with the reader. Her little sister Stroma, her new friend Bee, the charming Harper, even the dead brother she still mourns with their wonderfully diverse personalities all add something extraordinary to this enchanting story.

Reading this story will leave a mark.

There are some intriguing elements in this book that could have been an interesting way to show kids how to deal with death. However, I was extremely upset with the drug use in this book and how it was promoted. Also, the book is very bleak and depressing. This is not a book I would recommend for any teenager!