Customer Reviews

Broken for You

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

My wife read this book in one gulp, so to speak, and said, 'You must read this. You may find it a little too "girly," but I think you'll really like it anyhow.' Well, she was certainly right about my liking it. And it wasn't too 'girly,' either; although the main characters are women, the interactions, the plot twists, the quirkiness of all the characters, and the unexpectedness of their inner lives made it all fascinating to me.

Stephanie Kallos, a first-time novelist, has a delightful sense of humor and a real facility with words. Although the main arc of the plot winds up being fairly predictable (and, I might add, extremely satisfying), there are enough unexpected incidents and revelations along the way to make this trip very enjoyable. And her characters are all credible people with vivid inner lives, past histories, present desires and hesitations. All are wounded in some way, but none is a victim in the usual sense. And underlying all this is a strong current of the will to survive and even triumph, especially in the context of a purpose-created community of eccentrics.

It would be a shame if this book is overlooked because it is by a new novelist whose name doesn't ring a bell. If Kallos keeps writing, her name WILL become much better known.

Recommended.

Scott Morrison

I wanted to like this book. I intended to like it. But something rang false about the whole premise. It felt like I was watching a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, where all the sensitive, artistic -- yet damaged -- people come together in a nice supportive commune, eating off of mismatched china (a metaphor to clobber you over the head) to heal each other. Ick. There's Margaret, a terribly lonely, dying woman with a tragic past, rattling around her Seattle mansion, talking to all the precious objets d'art. She's also a woman of unlimited financial resources, and it is hard to believe a dame this loaded would be left all by her lonesome with no friends at all (or any domestic staff). Unless they go bonkers, like Howard Hughes, the very wealthy people of this world are subjected to the constant demands of clinging human sponges. Oh, wait -- the clinging human sponges show up in this book eventually, in the guise of caring friends. Caring friends who are Sensitive and Artistic and Damaged. Ick. They all move into the mansion, 'cause they care about Margaret so much, and because she's unbelievably wealthy. Don't get me started on Wanda the Basket Case. I couldn't make myself like her at all. And finally, my pet peeve of this book: WHY do they have to smash all the incredibly valuable pieces of china and porcelain? If Margaret is so consumed with guilt over her father's thievery, couldn't she just SELL all of the pieces and donate the proceeds to the National Holocaust Museum or to some other worthy cause that would have annoyed her father? Why do all these carefully crafted antique objects have to be smashed to bits and made over into Wanda's idea of art? Hmmm... No, it just didn't work for me. The only character I really loved was Margaret's dead mother, and I have the impression that I wasn't supposed to like her. Well, gee. I tried. I seem to be the only person unable to appreciate this novel!

I would give the first half of this book 5 stars. Stephanie Kallos is a talented writer, and I found myself caught up the story to the point that I didn't want to put the book down.

And then I got past Part One. And that's when my troubles with this novel began.

Summary, no spoilers:

Margaret is a wealthy woman and she lives alone in a huge house with many valuable antiques. She seems to have an almost unnatural attachment and devotion to them.

Wanda is a 30+ single woman with a mysterious past who comes and rents a room from Margaret, after Margaret discovers that she has brain tumor and decides to take in tenants.

The story goes back and forth between the lives and the pasts of these two interesting women.

As I said, up until the midway point of this book, I thought this was a terrific tale. But then many incredible coincidences start to pile up, and the story became too manipulative for my taste.

By book's end, I found myself wanting to fling this book away. Even though I found it so disappointing, I gave it 4 stars, because there is some beautiful writing, and because it started off so well.

Well written, but ultimately a frustrating read.

The best thing about this novel is its setting - Seattle, city of residence of the author. The worst is everything else. The story itself, about an elderly woman recluse named Margaret who lives alone in a mansion with valuable ill-gotten goods until she is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, is utterly senseless. After her diagnosis, Margaret chooses to take in a boarder whose temperament and personality suit her mission, which relates to the relics she has watched over for so long. Once the whole "broken" reference becomes is revealed, there isn't much else to it. If, once all of the main characters have appeared, the reader conjures up the sappiest ending possible for each of them, they will have a pretty good idea of the plot. Why, the reader might ask, must the valuable, intact items be "broken" as opposed to say something slightly logical like: donated to an appropriate charity, museum or cause. And if certain plot critical items had been broken, the inevitable (page 341) could not have occurred. Most of the characters stink. And although the only real villain in the story is the father of a main character, the actions of three of the other males don't exactly warm the heart: one deserts his child; one waits ridiculously long for a love interest to "come around," and another does the unspeakable, then tops it off by finding himself a trophy wife. A female character pines ridiculously long after her (fatherly?) love interest: an older, unattractive drunkard. Margaret herself makes some pretty unlikely life choices, which can only be explained by attributing them to the effects of the tumor on her brain. And that only covers the living. Besides the nonsensical plot and the overwhelmingly mediocre, spineless, sorry, sad sacks characters, there are several pages containing overly graphic descriptions of intimate behavior that just don't suit the tone of the book. For a fabulous novel with a Holocaust-related theme, try The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

This book is a lively emotional exploration of simple metaphor. Broken people, expensive china that cannot break. Broken lives, the joy of breaking things and reconstructing them. The first few chapters are exceptional and, despite their hackneyed premise, drew me into these characters and their adventure. At that point, the author should have stopped and made this a simple exploration of real life, etc. Instead, she gets symbolic and emotional and waxes into "big issues," at which point this book becomes as predictable as a heat wave and about as exciting. Kallos is talented and while this book is of the lukewarm modern popular fiction "literature" (not literature) variety, it had promise for the first half. Stop reading there and you'll get a flavorful shot of life with funny, literate, lively text.

I really wanted to like this book. The author's style drew me right in. I lived in the Seattle Area for some time and enjoyed reading about the great mansions around Volunteer Park, the tulips in the Skagit Valley, etc. I would have been happy if the story had been simply about Margaret and her looney relationship with her dead mother. Unfortunately, the author decides that she must surround the main character with a rapidly increasing "made family"-- all of them too quirky for their own good. Yes, it is possible that Margaret faced with death, could change her life from being a total recluse who talks only to her dead mother and her father's collection, but the author's handling of it is rushed and unconvincing.

My great problem, however, is what Margaret and Wanda decide to do with her priceless collection of porcelain. Ok--so she wants to destroy her wedding china--great. But when she starts destroying the collection of the victims of the Holocaust, I was horrified. I do not believe that the author really understands the implications of what she is saying. Suppose, say, Margaret had owned instead a number of paintings and had decided to let Wanda tear them into strips to make a weaving of a Menorah. Would most reviewers view their actions quite so approvingly? I know that the author attempts to get around this by saying that she can't find the descendants of the original owners anyway, but I just think her explanation unwittingly exposes the inherent flaw in her own book. I know that I would want my own beloved objects to be sold for the Holocaust Museum, or to help other victims of genocide, etc. And I think Wanda's stagey attempts to create back stories of the dead not wonderful at all, but playing around with the dead's lives in an self-indulgent way that is almost obscene. The author, however, is enamored with her heavy-handed metaphor of "broken people" and "broken pieces" all coming together in a "beautiful, life-affirming" way. Yeah, I caould see this as one of those "heart-warming" movies. And don't even get me started on all those co-incidental meetings, etc.


But then, I'm one of those people that hate it when undamaged obis and quilts are cut apart to be made into clothes and art, so this book hit a sore spot for me anyway.

If you like good fiction maybe you should wait for the author's next book. This book begins promisingly but becomes increasingly absurd. Tiresome by the middle, irritating by the end, very hard to finish(club pick). It is well-written and VERY ambitious but the book's real relationships (father/daughter, owner/objects, jilted lovers, guilt/retribution for a few)are mainly resolved so poorly that I would warn serious readers off this one.
The author's Big Themes keep piling up. Many bad fiction cliches including insta-friends, saintly boyfriends, ghosts.

When I finished this novel a flood of pleasure and satisfaction washed over me. The denouement I had hoped for had come to pass and the characters I had fallen in love with had completed the arc of their journeys. And for the first time ever I started a book over. I was looking for the crsft that had carried me away. The imagination had been evident, in fact after 20 pages of stumbling over gem after gem of language and observation, I had begun to read word for word. This is rare for me since once I care about a character I race to the next plot point hoping for good things to happen. The only authors I make a habit of reading word for word are Austen, so as not to miss the laugh out loud humor, Fowles, the master of the human heart and Stoppard, the best living writer in the English language. I knew the flashbacks, the split storyline and the erudition had been beautifully done. But I wanted to see if the character development had been as carefully executed. All the adumbrations and internal logic were there carefully placed in an artful mosaic. The next time I pick up a novel by Ms. Kallos, I will know to read it word for word, certain it will be a treasure.

"Broken for You," the new novel by Stephanie Kallos, is one of the most heart warming books I've read in a long time. When I read the jacket cover I wasn't sure I wanted to read a book with such a depressing premise. However, I was quickly pulled into the story, and not only found it moving, but entertaining and endearing, at times laughing out loud at the women's antics.

Two very different women, from different stages of life end up as "roommates" in a mansion owned by Margaret. Previous to Wanda's entrance into her life, Margaret's friends were china animals and artifacts left to her by her father's somewhat unusual and unethical business.

When Margaret learns she has a brain tumor, she decides to open her home to a boarder, and Wanda, a broken hearted young woman, is the lucky recipient of the gift of low rent, companionship and luxurious living quarters amongst priceless artifacts. Wanda has her own agenda, of course, and spends much of her time dressing in disguise and searching for her former lover.

Reading about these women's pasts and their former families made for an intriguing story of its own. This book is about family and the power of love. The families both women came from, the family members they lost, and the eclectic family they form as their friendship grows and their unique project evolves.

As the two become friends, more characters enter the scene, all unique and interesting. The character development is amazing, the characters quirky but still total mesmerizing.

My only problem with the book is that I had a hard time with the destruction of the china. Reality got in the way of a work of fiction. I kept thinking what positive things they might be able to do for holocaust victims and their families by donating the china to the Holocaust Museum. But the book still remains a favorite of mine and I highly recommend it.

This book began well - two "orphans" of sorts, one old, one young, find one another and begin to slowly pull down the walls they've been building for years. Nice premise. Unfortunately, Kallos then takes a very slow descent into a contrived, disjointed and entirely forgettable storyline. Trying to fit too much into what could have been a powerful story; Kallos seems to lose sight of her goals and tries to fit the content of 2-3 novels into one. When the book finally finishes it seems tired. Having drawn out the story for 98% of the book, the last 2% sees a sudden resolution of all the deep seeded problems and an all too clean, pretty, and boring ending. Seeing as Kallos spent 7 years writing this book it's not surprising that it ends so poorly - the story has had every drop of life wrung out of it by the time its half over, yet is forced to limp forward to an unsatisfactory ending.

With so many excellent authors to be read, I'm sorry I wasted my time. Stick with Wallace Stegner, Jane Austen, Bronte, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc.