Broken Things is a gripping YA thriller about friendship and how things are more complicated than they seem. Anyone on the internet can read about how Mia and Brynn murdered their best friend Summer in the woods, in a way similar to the fan fiction the three of them wrote as a sequel to the fantasy novel The Way into Lovelorn that the author left unfinished. The thing is, Mia and Brynn didn't do it. Five years later, they're no longer friends and they're not doing well. A chance discovery leads them back into the mystery and soon they must confront the past whilst looking for the truth not only of what happened to Summer, but about their friendship with her.

It is a clever, moving young adult novel that combines the tension of the truth about Summer's murder with exploration of the characters of Mia, Brynn, and Summer. Their obsession with Lovelorn - particularly Summer's - is shown as a way of coping with their lives; the world of fandom is not demonised, but rather shown in different lights, and the focus is really on the real world, rather than the fictional one. Particularly fascinating is Brynn, who fakes a drink and drug problem because rehab is the only place she feels safe, away from the people accusing her of murder and away from the truth of her feelings for Summer. Broken Things has a classic wrongly-accused-and-must-find-the-real-killer narrative, combined with engaging characters dealing with real problems.

In some ways, Broken Things is about looking beyond what you can read on the internet. The initial story of the murder sounds a lot like something you might read on Buzzfeed or Tumblr as an unexplained mystery, and then the novel goes on to expose the impact of that happening to innocent people. It is the kind of novel that you can't put down because you need to know what actually happened, but also need to know if the characters can move on.

Lauren Oliver always manages to write the most addictive books. She honestly does not get enough attention for her writing style. Her stories pull you in write from the first line and Broken Things certainly started with quite the opener.

“Five years ago, when I had just turned thirteen, I killed my best friend.
I chased her down and cracked her over the head with a rock. Then I dragged her body out of the woods and into a field and arranged it in the centre of a circle of stones I’d placed there with my other friend, Mia. Then we knifed her twice in the throat, and five times in the chest. Mia was planning to douse her body with gasoline and light her on fire, but something went wrong and we bolted instead.”

I loved Brynn and Mia’s characters. Both of them really evolved through the book. The more you learnt about them and their past relationship with Summer the more haunting the book became.

Excerpts from the book The Way into Lovelorn are scattered throughout the book, but they’re not overwhelming. With Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl I found the Snow chapters far too long and I never bothered reading them as they didn’t affect the story, but the Lovelorn quotes really added to the story.

Even if thriller/mysteries aren’t really your thing I do recommend this purely due to the amazing writing.

3.5/5 Stars

There is a dark beauty to Lauren Oliver's writing that gets me every time- Broken Things is a melancholy, beautifully plotted tale of friendship and murder.

An obsession with a book that had no ending leads 3 friends down a dangerous path. One dies, the others are assumed guilty, years later they come together once more to try and discover the truth..

I love the way the author digs deep into her characters, peeling back the layers with huge insight. The mystery elements are clever and emotional, for once I did not fully predict the outcome.

Tense, atmospheric, often a little creepy, Broken Things was a wonderful if a little heart breaking read and I definitely recommend it.