Rowena’s review of Unbreak my Heart by Melissa Walker.
Main Character: Clementine
Love Interest: James
Series: None
Author: Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads
The year that broke her heart. The summer that healed it. A dual love story.
Sophomore year broke Clementine Williams’ heart. She fell for her best friend’s boyfriend and long story short: he’s excused, but Clem is vilified and she heads into summer with zero social life. Enter her parents’ plan to spend the summer on their sailboat. Normally the idea of being stuck on a tiny boat with her parents and little sister would make Clem break out in hives, but floating away sounds pretty good right now. Then she meets James at one of their first stops along the river. He and his dad are sailing for the summer and he’s just the distraction Clem needs. Can he break down Clem’s walls and heal her broken heart? Told in alternating chapters that chronicle the year that broke Clem’s heart and the summer that healed it, Unbreak My Heart is a wonderful dual love story that fans of Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Susane Colasanti will flock to.
When a book has kept you up until the wee hours of the morning, you know it was a good book. I expected to be a lot more tired this morning when I came into work considering I didn’t get to bed until after 2am because I just had to finish this book. I enjoyed it that much.
This book follows Clementine William as she summers with her family on the family boat. On one hand, she’s glad to be away from home and the problems that are there but on the other hand, the very last thing she wants to do is be stuck on a boat with her family where she will be expected to hang out with her family. She’s depressed and really just wants to wallow in her depression.
Clem did the unthinkable. She fell for her best friends boyfriend. She also kept these feelings from her best friend and flirted with the boyfriend, knowing it was wrong. As much as she wanted to stay away, she couldn’t. She was drawn to Ethan more and more because they shared the same likes and dislikes. They had so much in common and when it was becoming more and more obvious that he returned her feelings, Clem did try to stop things. Ethan assured her that he saw her as a friend and nothing more so Clem let her uneasiness with things with Ethan go.
Only she shouldn’t have because the shit hit the fan and even though she never hooked up or kissed Ethan, things turned real ugly for her.
Amanda refused to talk to her, to let her explain and Clem gave her the space she demanded…and then she goes on the family trip on the family boat. Clem feels terrible and she feels like she deserves the treatment that she got at school and while I could see Clem deserving Amanda’s wrath for a little while, I hated that she was the only person that got the shaft from pretty much everyone at school. Even all of her friends.
So she’s on this trip with her family and she’s hating every minute of it. She wants to spend the entire summer locked away from people, life and well, everything because she feels like she should be punishing herself. After a while, the woe is me attitude got to be a bit tired. On this trip, Clem meets a guy named James with red hair, who is totally cute. After a rocky start, a friendship blossoms between the two and then that summer romance thing happens and my heart sighed all over the hot dang place.
I loved the summer romance that blossomed between James and Clem. The way that James was with her, the way that he was with her family and little sister, Olive. I adored Olive and the unconditional love that Clem’s family had for her. They never wavered in their love for her and when she realized just how lucky she really was, I was glad. I thought this book was such an entertaining story about a girl who learned who she was and who she wanted to be over the course of a summer. She was heartbroken and she was sorry but she wasn’t broken. I loved seeing Clem come into her own over the course of the story. She was such a great character and I adored it all.
This book is getting a high B from me because in the beginning of the book, I spent so much time wanting to smack some sense into Clem. I wasn’t a fan of the way that she treated Olive in the beginning or the way that she treated her family for that matter but she more than made up for all of that madness and won me over. I enjoyed getting to know her and I can’t recommend this book enough. Kudos to Melissa Walker on a fabulous job with this book.
…and that’s your scoop!
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Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com
I loved this one too. I think I was in a perfect mood for a great summer book when I read this one, and it fit the bill. Great review.
This book is on my wishlist, so your review makes me very happy.
Thanks for the review. I really want to read this book but I wasn’t sure about the cheating thing, I’m glad you say they never hooked up because that would have been harder for me to accept 🙂
great review.
@Annette: Wasn’t it just a wonderful story? I really enjoyed it.
@Sabrina: I hope you get to read it soon and I hope you like it as much as I did. It was the perfect weekend read.
I thought Clem was very teenagery at the beginning with her treatment of her family-no one can possibly understand her desolation and she just has *so* many feelings. I definitely perked up once she started being more social. And I just plain loved that her whole family played a role in the story-yeah for active YA parents!
@Alex: I’m not usually a fan of the whole cheating thing but it’s dealt with in this story and I liked it. It was a good read for me.
@Bookworm1858: Yeah, Clem was pretty annoying toward her family in the beginning. I thought her family was pretty awesome and loved the way that they stuck by her. When Olive tells her why she loves her? I about died with how adorable that was. I really liked that her parents were active in her life. That’s always a good thing.