I loved
Broken LikeGlass by EJ McCay, and have already read parts of it again. I will probably
eventually re-read the whole book, which really says something about it. As
busy as I am, and as many books as I have on my reading list, if I’m willing to
invest my time in a book twice, that book deserves five stars!
I was hooked on
BrokenLike Glass from page one and couldn’t put it down. The story begins just
after the main character, Lilly nearly goes to jail for stabbing her Daddy, who
is actually her adopted father, but more on that later.
Because Lilly can’t actually vocalize why she stabbed her
father, the judge orders her to go to therapy to dig into her past and try to
find out. There’s always a reason why someone suddenly hurts someone else.
People don’t just stab someone out of the blue; there has to be a provocation. Kudos
to the judge for trying to find out why, rather than just throwing Lilly in
jail.
The story focuses heavily on an internal dialogue between
Lilly and God, who she refers to as ‘Papa’ but more on that in a minute. Lilly
describes God as if he’s really sitting right there in the chair next to her,
and talking to her, and looking at her, and coming and going, and poking her in
the heart.
Lilly is also caught in a love triangle between two guys
neither of whom she’s seen in fifteen years, but both of whom had a crush on
her back when they were young and neither of whom have had any relationships in
between then and now. There were hints here and there that Lilly had a bit of a
shady past with guys during those interim years and may have done things she
wasn’t proud of.
The local bartender, Fancy refers to Lilly at one point as
her “favorite nerd” yet Lilly talks with a snarky, back-woods twang and thinks
of herself as no-good trash. She also supposedly is a successful business woman
with a career that she just puts on hold in another town far away. The reader
never feels Lilly as being happy so we never see her smile, yet one of the guys
in her love triangle is constantly telling her she’s beautiful. I just can’t
picture a sullen, depressed, back-woods trash girl who never smiles as being a
nerd and/or beautiful and/or a successful business woman. It just doesn’t fit.
All the names of kinfolk were confusing. Lilly calls God ‘Papa,’
the man who raised/adopted her is called Daddy but he’s not actually her Daddy,
he’s her Grandpa except at one point the bar tender, Fancy makes reference to Lilly’s
biological grandpa which led me to believe that there was another man in there
somewhere. Then later Fancy tells Lilly that she has a half-brother somewhere
because Grandpa/Daddy had a son who lives “somewhere up North East” who she’s
never met and they never talked about much. So, technically that half-brother
would actually be a half-uncle, unless of course Grandpa/Daddy is not actually
her biological grandpa, in which case the half-brother/half-uncle wouldn’t
actually be related at all. Lilly’s biological grandma, who she calls Momma,
adopted her when Lilly’s biological mom ran off. Grandma/Momma’s name was Lula
but Lilly was named after her great-grandma Lillian, who ‘by adoption’ is now her
grandma. Lilly’s biological dad was Lula’s son (from a previous marriage –
okay, now I see where there actually is a biological grandpa out there
somewhere who is not the man who raised her or her biological dad) and Lilly’s
biological dad would come around for a few days at a time over the years and
then would leave again. No wonder Lilly’s crazy and has blocked out half her
childhood!
The real reason she stabbed her Daddy is actually quite
predictable, but the true story of the book is Lilly’s journey of discovery.
Grab some Kleenex and be sure you have a few free hours of time when you read
this because you won’t be able to put this book down! And if you’ve ever had
any type of abusive relationship in your past, be prepared to dredge up some
old wounds as well. Personally, I think almost everyone will be able to relate
in some way to this story. It just touches on so many different parts of our
lives and the interconnectedness of the people in our past, present, and
future. Wow, okay, quite a story.
Have you read
BrokenLike Glass by EJ McCay? What’s your opinion? –Julie L. Spencer
Other Books by EJ McCay:
Charitable Hearts is really good! I'll write a review for it one of these days.
I'm reading Called Warrior right now, so I'll write a review sometime after I'm done.
