Broken

De: Daniel Clay

Narrado por: Colin Moody

A brilliant and utterly original debut novel.

Skunk Cunningham is an 11-year-old girl in a coma. She has a loving dad, an absent mother and a brother who plays more X-Box than is good for him. She also has the neighbors from hell: the five Oswald girls and their thuggish father Bob, vicious bullies all of them, whose reign of terror extends unchallenged over their otherwise quiet suburban street.

And yet terrifying though they undoubtedly are, the stiletto-wearing, cider-swilling Oswald girls are also sexy - so when Saskia asks shy, virginal Rick Buckley for a ride in his new car, he can't believe his luck. Too bad that Saskia can't keep her big mouth shut. When, after a quick fumble, she broadcasts Rick's deficiencies to anyone who will listen, it puts ideas into her younger sister's silly head - ideas that will see Rick dragged off to prison, humiliated, and ultimately, in his father's words, 'broken' by the experience.

From her hospital bed, Skunk guides us through the events that follow, as Saskia's small act of thoughtlessness slowly spreads through the neighborhood in a web of increasing violence. Skunk watches as her shabby, hardworking father finds love, only for her courageous, idealistic teacher to lose it; as poor 'Broken' Buckley descends into madness, while across the street her brother Jed makes his first adolescent forays into sex; and as her own gentle romance with soft-hearted, tough-talking Dillon struggles to survive against a backdrop that seamlessly combines the sublime and the ridiculous. As we inch ever closer to the mystery behind her coma, Skunk's innocence becomes a beacon by which we navigate a world as comic as it is tragic, and as effortlessly engaging as it is ultimately uplifting, in this brilliant and utterly original debut novel.

©2008 Daniel Clay (P)2008 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

review

Truly a unique story, interesting characters (even the ones you hate). I look forward to another by this author

Not your mother's To Kill a Mockingbird

I loved "To Kill a Mockingbird" and expected a similar story. But it is really nothing like Mockingbird. I really enjoyed it though and have been trying to figure out if I would have enjoyed it as much had I read it rather than listened to it. I very much enjoyed the narrator. He was perfect for the book. The story is at times rather intense but it's worth the ride.

Good book

I'd recommend this book. Definitely has some unexpected twists and turns and is a bit dark in parts, but you can't put it down until you figure out how it all will end. There are some loose parallels to "To Kill a Mockingbird", but if you weren't a fan of that book, don't let that stop you. This is a modern day book with a suspensful plot.