ARC Review: Fierce Fragile Hearts (Beautiful Broken Things #2) by Sara Barnard
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Series: Beautiful Broken Things #2
Author: Sara Barnard
Published February 7th 2019 by Macmillan Children's Books
Goodreads Synopsis
'This time around, I'm going to be so much better. I'm going to prove to them that it was worth waiting on me.'
Two years after a downward spiral took her as low as you can possibly go, Suzanne is starting again. Again. She's back in Brighton, the only place she felt she belonged, back with her best friends Caddy and Rosie. But they're about to leave for university. When your friends have been your light in the darkness, what happens when you're the one left behind?
Fierce Fragile Hearts is the stunning sequel to international bestseller Beautiful Broken Things.
Goodreads
Review
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way impacted on my view.
Suzanne Watts has gone through a lot in her life. Moving to Brighton at 15, to escape an abusive father, she finds her very best friends in Caddy and Rosie. Fast forward 3 years, and she is now on the other side of a suicide attempt, recovery, and leaving the care system. Returning to Brighton is her biggest wish, but being alone, in a rundown bedsit, when her friends will be moving away for uni, may just prove to be too much. Can Suzanne overcome her loneliness, and deal with her past in order to have a future.
I'd just finished Beautiful Broken Things when I started this one, and was happy to see that there was a change of view this time around. Now the whole story was from Suzanne's perspective, and we learn so much about her. She doesn't sugar coat what happened to her with her family, nor her recovery at Gwillim or in Southampton. I will admit, there were times she got on my nerves with the repetitive self-sabotage, but I enjoyed seeing her grow from scared teen to a young adult, finding her place in the world, and looking towards the future. We do meet some new characters, like Matt (a potential boyfriend) and Dilys (a grandmother-like figure who takes Suze under her wing). Rosie, again, was sort of an afterthought, where I felt like there wasn't much to her, except for being the bold and brassy lesbian friend, who swoops in from time to time, but doesn't have her own story line. Caddy is less naive than she was, but I didn't like her changes in the two years that had passed. She now has a boyfriend (they were good together), but once she moved to Warwick she changed a lot, and was rude and not a very good friend. I'm glad I've read it, and learnt more about Suze, but this isn't a series I reckon I'd re-read.
Dates Read:
January 21-23, 2021
Rating
3 Stars
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