Broken Country

Storyline: 3 Stars

I was a little disappointed with this book. It had really high ratings on Goodreads and other websites, but I did not think that it lived up to the ratings. I have really enjoyed the genre of mystery mixed with contemporary or historical fiction, but this one missed the mark for me.

I think a big reason for not liking this book was that I did not like the main character. I could not get behind any of Beth’s choices. I liked her less the longer the book went on and I learned about her passed and how everything went down. The whole time I was annoyed with her and I liked both Gabriel and Frank much better than her. She honestly ruined both of those relationship and yet she got a happy ending with both of them while both the men suffered.

I will also say that some of the big “reveals” were pretty obvious from the start. The biggest “reveal” I guessed in the first fifty pages of the book, and some of the other “reveals” were pretty easy to guess as well.

Parental Guidance: 55% Recommend

I would recommend this book 55% of the time. There was some swearing, including the “f” word, although it was not frequent throughout the book. There was some violence, although it was not graphic.

The main reason for taking percentage points off was the intimate scenes. They were not detailed, but there was a paragraph or two a few times throughout the book that I had to skip when it was too intimate. It was also weird because some of those scenes were for an affair, which should not be encouraged. Other scenes were between teenagers, which was also weird to read.

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Spoilers Ahead

This book was so predictable. I knew that Bobby was Gabriel’s kid as soon as I knew the year that Bobby was born and did the math. It was not much of a reveal, and I doubt that many readers would miss it while reading. There were other reveals that were obvious, like Jimmy was the one that had been killed after Beth made the Lennie and George comparison from Of Mice and Men.

Besides the obvious reveals, I could not stand Beth. She meets a boy, falls in love, and starts to question things. Instead of talking to him about it, she reads the dairy and assumes the worst without even talking to him. Sure, Gabriel could have reached out to her after, but Beth had a real obligation especially afte realizing that she was pregnant with his child! Then she doesn’t tell him, instead she gets paid off by his mom . . . what? Then she ropes poor Frank into it and lets him raise another man’s child and refuses to have another child with Frank. Then Beth and her kid spy on Gabriel’s wedding. Then Beth leaves poor Frank after Bobby dies for awhile, comes back, and starts hanging out with Gabriel while Frank blames himself for being a horrible guy even though he raised Gabriel’s kid as his own. Beth goes and has an affair with Gabriel. Frank goes to prison for something he didn’t do; Gabriel pays a crap load of money for the trial. Of course Gabriel made the mistake of the affair too, some blame of course gets put on him for that action. But I literally cannot think of one selfless thing that Beth does for the entirety of the book. Then she doesn’t tell Frank that she isn’t using birth prevention and has a baby while he’s in prison.

Gabriel of course was not the greatest guy, and he is to blame as well for the affair. But poor Frank! I was so frustrated for him. He was so selfless and everyone treated him like dirt. He lost the child he raised, his brother, went to prison, was cheated on, did not see how own kid for the first eight years of her life, and he was totally fine with it all.