Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
SPOILERS BOOK CLUB DON’T READ
“’Beer is God’s reward for an honest day’s toil.’”
“’You have to fool yourself into thinking you already are the thing you want to become.’”
“You can never change back once you’ve had a child, even if that child no longer exists.”
Broken Country is about Beth, her family, and her love interests. She meets and falls in love with Grabriel but then conflict occurs. They have a falling out and then Beth meets back up with Frank, who has been in love with her since he was 13. They become a family and live on a farm that has been in Frank’s family for a long time. One day a dog comes out of nowhere and starts to kill some livestock then is subsequently shot down. The owner is none other than Gabriel. We follow the story as it flips back and forth between the early days and the present. Beth’s son died when he was younger and they are still carrying grief. There is a brother Jimmy and Gabriel’s son, Leo. Their lives intertwine again and it gets complicated. Will Gabriel and Beth rekindle their love? Will Frank and Beth survive? How will life go down on this farm? This pastoral life isn’t as perfect as it may look.
Clare Leslie Hall wrote this book and one thing I liked was the short chapters. It made progress seem quicker. I read it pretty quickly despite the fact that I didn’t really get into it. It was sort of boring. The love and passion didn’t show through the words and pages for me. Within the first few chapters, I did have a distinct feeling that I was reading something akin to Little House on the Prairie. The setting did conjure vivid images of the countryside and set the tone. I didn’t connect with any of the characters, and I don’t know if it is because of the HR effect or not. It is what it is though. Frank to me was a very good guy but was a doormat and didn’t lay down the law with his brother. Gabriel seemed like a player who never stood up to his mother. The mother was a b***h. I guess Bobby was probably the best character despite the fact he can’t listen and his death was just plain stupid. Tragic, I guess is the right word but it just didn’t come across as tragic. Jimmy was a drunk. I just didn’t like Beth. She messed everything up and I didn’t really believe her regret. She knew what she was doing was wrong but kept doing it anyways. Some words or phrases that I came across that I liked were acerbic dissident, fervency, and alacrity. “My whole life moving forward will be filled with people who never knew my son” and “seesaw of grief.” I did learn that the original phrase is another think coming instead of another thing coming. There was a twist towards the end but it seemed like a foregone conclusion. Overall, I didn’t jive with this book. This is exactly the type of book I wouldn’t read again or really recommend to anyone.
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