Broken Things

by Lauren Oliver

Overview

With all the intensity and whiplash turns of Sharp Objects and One of Us Is Lying, this engrossing psychological thriller by New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver is an unforgettable, mesmerizing tale of exquisite obsession, spoiled innocence, and impossible friendships.

It’s been five years since Summer Marks was brutally murdered in the woods.

Everyone thinks Mia and Brynn killed their best friend. That driven by their obsession with a novel called The Way into Lovelorn the three girls had imagined themselves into the magical world where their fantasies became twisted, even deadly.

The only thing is: they didn’t do it.

On the anniversary of Summer’s death, a seemingly insignificant discovery resurrects the mystery and pulls Mia and Brynn back together once again. But as the lines begin to blur between past and present and fiction and reality, the girls must confront what really happened in the woods all those years ago—no matter how monstrous.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062224149
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	09/03/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	90,353
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Lauren Oliver is the cofounder of media and content development company Glasstown Entertainment, where she serves as the President of Production.

She is also the New York Times bestselling author of the YA novels Replica, Vanishing Girls, Panic, and the Delirium trilogy: Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. The film rights to both Replica and Lauren's bestselling first novel, Before I Fall, were acquired by Awesomeness Films. Before I Fall was adapted into a major motion picture starring Zoey Deutch. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, garnering a wide release from Open Road Films that year.

Oliver is a 2012 E. B. White Read-Aloud Award nominee for her middle-grade novel Liesl & Po, as well as author of the middle-grade fantasy novel The Spindlers and The Curiosity House series, co-written with H.C. Chester. She has written one novel for adults, Rooms.

Oliver co-founded Glasstown Entertainment with poet and author Lexa Hillyer. Since 2010, the company has developed and sold more than fifty-five novels for adults, young adults, and middle-grade readers. Some of its recent titles include the New York Times bestseller Everless, by Sara Holland; the critically acclaimed Bonfire, authored by the actress Krysten Ritter; and The Hunger by Alma Katsu, which received multiple starred reviews and was praised by Stephen King as “disturbing, hard to put down” and “not recommended…after dark.”

Oliver is a narrative consultant for Illumination Entertainment and is writing features and TV shows for a number of production companies and studios.

Oliver received an academic scholarship to the University of Chicago, where she was elected Phi Beta Kappa. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from New York University.

www.laurenoliverbooks.com.

Editorial Reviews

“Oliver masters the slow reveal in this mystery-laden thriller… Taut and twisting, Oliver’s latest is something special.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Captivating and sinister from the start, the novel’s depiction of female frenemies and villains is fresh and complex... A must-have.” — School Library Journal

“Expect readers to have much to discuss with a provocative and divisive conclusion... A page-turner for sure.” — Kirkus Reviews

“This novel has all the elements of a thriller—an unsolved murder, long-held secrets and lies, grieving best friends...[and] it succeeds in creating an eerie setting and atmosphere.” — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Oliver masters the slow reveal in this mystery-laden thriller… Taut and twisting, Oliver’s latest is something special.

Booklist (starred review)

08/20/2018
When Vermont best friends Brynn, Mia, and Summer were 13, Summer was murdered under strange circumstances linked to the girls’ obsession with an old fantasy novel, The Way into Lovelorn. Five years after being publicly accused of, but never charged with, Summer’s murder, Brynn and Mia, still known as the Monsters of Brickhouse Lane, are determined to find out what really happened. Oliver (the Delirium Trilogy) tells her story in first-person chapters that alternate between Brynn, in rehab, and Mia, who is trying to dig herself out of her mother’s hoarded piles. In chapter interstitials, Oliver weaves excerpts fromThe Way into Lovelornas well as the fanfiction the three girls wrote when they were young, designed to offer an additional layer to the mystery. This novel has all the elements of a thriller—an unsolved murder, long-held secrets and lies, grieving best friends—yet it lacks necessary tension, and Brynn and Mia’s voices read as overly similar. The novel falls short of producing an urgent story with clearly distinct characters, but it succeeds in creating an eerie setting and atmosphere. Ages 14–up. Agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Retains all the tension and excitement of Oliver’s Delirium…A work with sharp corners, dark places, and considerable humanity.

The Horn Book

PRAISE FOR PANIC: “Oliver, in a pitch-perfect teen voice, explores the power we have to affect the people around us in this intensely believable first novel. This is a compelling book with a powerful message and should not be missed.

ALA Booklist

Oliver’s novel is a wholly believable and compulsively readable tale of friendship, loyalty, survival, and courage.

Booklist

PRAISE FOR VANISHING GIRLS: “Alarming and uplifting, a rare psychological thriller that has a kind heart at its center. Read it with all the lights on.

E. Lockhart

08/01/2018
Gr 10 Up—Oliver's latest thriller brings readers into the outskirts of Vermont, where two girls must work together to solve the cold case of their best friend's murder by locating her killer and simultaneously exonerating themselves in the public eye. Brynn, Mia, and Summer are an inseparable trio until the day that Summer is found viciously murdered, left as a sacrifice to someone—or something. In the aftermath, Brynn and Mia are never formally convicted, but they are found guilty in the court of public opinion. Years after, a wedge has been driven between them. At odds with the rest of the town, and even with their families, the two girls begrudgingly reconnect to sort out the truth of what happened. Their best clues are also the items that led the town to judge them as killers—the pages of a book the three had been writing together, in which the protagonist is brutally murdered. Captivating and sinister from the start, the novel's depiction of female frenemies and villains is fresh and complex, even if the resolution is a little tidy. The novel deals pretty heavily in sex, violence, and emotional cruelty—it's done well, but it's not for the faint of heart. Summer is like the second coming of Alison DiLaurentis from "Pretty Little Liars," except prone to animal abuse and even more unhinged. VERDICT Recommended for mature teens interested in reading about the everyday monsters they may encounter without ever knowing it. A must-have.—Emily Grace Le May, Williams School, Information Services Associate

School Library Journal

2018-06-24
Friendship and fandom turn deadly for a group of teen girls.Quiet Mia, brash Brynn, and beautiful Summer—three 13-year-old friends living in rural Vermont—all bonded over their love of an obscure children's fantasy book The Way Into Lovelorn. Lovelorn has a famous midsentence ending, and the girls decide to compose their own fanfiction to imagine its resolution. However, when Summer is brutally murdered, Mia and Brynn (along with their friend Owen) are wrongfully accused of the crime, propelling the teens into unfortunate infamy with the moniker The Monsters of Brickhouse Lane. Five years later, they reunite to try to catch Summer's murderer. Alternating chapters, which jump between Mia's and Brynn's perspectives from when they were 13 and the present, also include snippets of metafictitious Lovelorn and bits of the girls' fanfiction. Although many other offerings have examined the turbulent machinations of teen girls, Oliver (Ringer, 2017, etc.) nimbly navigates the obsessive and erratic bonds the girls forge; mercurial Summer vacillates from charming to malicious, bewildering the others. While the characters are deftly portrayed, the mystery meanders into contrivance and convenience. Expect readers to have much to discuss with a provocative and divisive conclusion that may frustrate those who prefer a tidy resolution. While all characters are assumed white, Brynn is a lesbian, and a secondary character is fat-positive and pansexual. A page-turner for sure, but this meta romp teeters into preciousness. (Mystery. 14-adult)

Kirkus Reviews