BOOK REVIEW: Unbreak Me by Michelle Hazen @michellehazen @berkleypub #unbreakme

A bold, socially-conscious contemporary romance novel that explores everything from race, culture, and social status in the midst of an emotional love story between people with darkness in their pasts. The characters in this story just broke me down and built me back up while reading it. Beautiful!

Andra Lawler lives an isolated life on a horse ranch her family owns in Montana. Though her life seems lonely, Andra finds that the only time she feels free from the anxiety and panic attacks that plague her are when she is out on the ranch with the horses.

Nearly five years earlier in college Andra was kidnapped, drugged, and assaulted. With the details of her attack splashed across the headlines, Andra has never been able to escape it. Andra’s pain makes others uncomfortable. Even her own family doesn’t know quite how to treat her after those horrible events.

When Andra needs help to train her foals, she hires a Haitian-Creole cowboy from New Orleans named LJ Delisle. LJ has always loved horses, but opportunities to train them are scarce in New Orleans. When he makes the decision to pursue this opportunity and leave behind his ailing mother, he never expected to meet someone like Andra.

As LJ slowly breaks down Andra’s walls through his care of the horses, his excellent home-baked goods, and his affable disposition. But LJ has his own dark past he is working to hide. And the people in their small town don’t fully accept him.

Their friendship develops slowly—they are two damaged souls who may be just what the other needs to heal. But as things between them become more solid, an emergency in New Orleans causes LJ to return home. Andra is learning to trust men again, but has she healed enough to leave the safety of her family homestead and follow LJ?

This book wrecked me in a beautiful way. This is not your average light-hearted romance. If I’m honest, I don’t even know if I’d put this in the romance category, though it certainly fits there. I felt this book was so much more!

There is a darkness to both Andra’s and LJ’s stories. These are two individuals who have taken a beating by life. The themes of this book are authentic and handled with dignity and raw authenticity. Everything from the challenges they face being an interracial couple to Andra’s assault, to living through the trauma of something like Hurricane Katrina were told in a way that showed the struggle and the reality, without being unnecessarily salacious or provocative. These are examples of the sort of struggles that may underlie many people. Some we don’t even know.

One interesting thing about LJ was the way he seemed good-natured, fun, and light. And he is those things. But because that is what he presents to the world, many may not look deeper and see the full experience of him as a person. The pain, shame, strength, and vulnerabilities he carries.

Andra was another wonderful character. I though the author did a truly fantastic job showing how trapped she is psychologically by what she has gone through. How those around her experience both the desire to help her heal, but also the fear that they don’t understand how to approach her. This leads her to feel even more alone.

But let’s end as the book does with the theme being healing, love, and accepting others fully. A beautiful message for a beautiful book.

Thank you Berkley for my copy. Opinions are my own.