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Broken Glass Park (2010)

by Alina Bronsky(Favorite Author)

3.62 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1933372966 (ISBN13: 9781933372969)

languge

English

genre

Young Adult Fiction

publisher

Europa Editions

review 1: “Broken Glass Park” is a coming-of-age novel with an edge. Coming of age novels have historically been a province (Dickens, Joyce, Salinger, the country naïfs that Flaubert and Balzac set loose in Paris; “Jane Eyre”, for example, although it follows the heroine through much travail, ends with a settling down rather than a setting off). There is no doubt much to be said economic, and social constraints on that account, and perhaps something about male narcissism as well. All that said, “Broken Glass Park” refreshingly modernizes the genre, turns it upside down. Sascha Naimann is a fierce, intelligent heroine for our time, a Russian immigrant to Germany, her family shattered by domestic violence. Like Holden Caulfield she is haunted by death and hungry to find ... moreout what is genuine and what counterfeit–finding mostly the latter, of course. These comments should not be interpreted as in any way implying that “Broken Glass Park” is derivative; they should instead convey that how fresh and different the author’s vision is. Sascha is intense and sardonic, yes, but utterly herself. She seethes and imagines killing her mother’s murderer, seeks and does not find solace, grows and fits and starts in a world grittier, darker and more dangerous than Holden’s. She is give the chance to escape, to leave the cramped apartment building and seedy neighborhood where she lives with siblings and aunt, and enter the milieu of well-heeled families in large, silent, almost empty mansions. Instead she brings those two worlds together. And then leaves them both.
review 2: I wanted to like this book better than I did. I liked it, just didn't love it. The narrator, who I presume to be very much like the author, is a sympathetic character but not quite sympathetic enough. The writing is fast paced and good, glib and interesting but not quite as insightful as it seemed like it might be from the first few pages. Could be that it's just that it's her first book and subsequent books will be more accomplished. There does seem to be a lot of potential there. Enough that I will read her next book and see how I like it. less

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