5-star Review: Broken Magic by @saalon "Some of the best endings leave questions unanswered."
Broken Magic
Written by Eric Sipple
Follow @saalonGenre: Young Adult Fantasy
Book Synopsis
It’s senior year of high school, and everyone but Neil seems to know what’s next. All Neil wants is to be free: to survive his last year, and keep hoping something better is waiting for him in college. Then a musician named Celeste comes into his life.Celeste doesn't fit into Neil's reality. She’s a runaway, chasing an impossible world. She can't be like everyone else - and when he's around her, Neil's not himself, either.
Helping Celeste in her quest for magic – and the father who abandoned her to search for it – might cost Neil everything.
But when you don’t know your place in this world, and someone offers you another...is everything too high a price to pay?
Mark's Rating
Mark's Review
Eric asked if I would review this book for him, and since I was already familiar with his writing, I gladly accepted, knowing I was in for a treat. At first glance this isn't a book I would have picked up, genre wise. Being an amateur musician myself, though, I was quickly drawn to the book because one of the main characters is a musician.
After reading the first few pages, I felt a small backlash, not from Eric's superb writing style but from the genre. I knew why I didn't normally read teenage saga type stories, but I pressed forward, and I'm glad I did. The story definitely gets better the more you read.
In fact, as I got further into the story, I found another drawing element: the main character. I could relate to him. In some ways his high school experience was the same as mine. A lot of times internal monologue drives me nuts, but I didn't feel that way this time. I understood the internal thoughts, many of them mirroring what mine would have been.
At first I was disappointed in the ending. I felt unsatisfied, like something was missing, but I'm glad I waited to write this review because my understanding of the ending has changed. The more I think about it, the more I like it, which is a hallmark of great writing. If you continue to think about a book long after you finish reading it, then you have found a very good book.
Fiction that mirrors life is good fiction, but life isn't always as tidy as many fiction writing tips might suggest. A character needs to evolve through the course of a story — true, but that doesn't mean every question needs to be answered in the end. Doubt, disappointment, uncertainty — a story can end with these without being a cliff hanger or unnecessarily abrupt. In fact, some of the best endings leave questions unanswered.
Review Disclaimer: This book was provided free of charge in exchange for an honest review. The above review was not influenced in any way, including financial.
