Review: What's Broken Between Us by Alexis Bass

What's Broken Between Us by Alexis Bass

Alexis Bass’s heartbreakingly beautiful second novel is a tale of love, loss, and learning to forgive, perfect for fans of Gayle Forman and of Robyn Schneider's The Beginning of Everything.
A year and a half ago, Amanda Tart's brother got behind the wheel drunk and killed his best friend. Today, he's coming home from prison.
Amanda's been the one living with the fallout, made worse by her brother's recent unapologetic TV interview. People think he's a monster. Still, she loves him. It's her dark secret, until she starts getting close to Henry again--whose sister is paralyzed from the accident.
A year and a half ago, her brother destroyed his life. Now Amanda has to decide if she'll let his choice destroy hers.

Publishes in US: December 29th 2015 by HarperCollins
Genre: ya contemp heavy
Source: Harper Teen via Edelweiss
Disclaimer: I received this book as an ARC (advanced review copy). I am not paid for this review, and my opinions in this review are mine, and are not effected by the book being free.
Series? no

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    I wanted to read what broken between us because I am drawn to the darker and have your contemporaries like this one. I wasn't sure if I sit with the focus was going to be on because the synopsis was a little bit make it mentions her brother who was the drunk driver in an accident that killed someone and left his girlfriend paralyzed.

    The main character was okay and I can understand her hardship and trying to deal with the school seeing her brother as the bad guy hearing them say that she deserved more time in prison and that there's a lot of focus on an interview that he did for TV where he sounded totally unrepentant. but at times I feel like she was just not like I didn't really get a big tip to the motion from her you know she would say that stuff made her upset that she had to put on this face for the public.

   Her brother Jonathan is definitely intriguing when he is let out of prison we see a young man who is broken who is sorrowful who is driving himself and alcohol still and he's trying to find his way back to some semblance of a real life he is trying to be close with his sister and he's just stuck in this pretty low place.

    I feel like in the beginning we get a lot of characters thrown at us and it's hard sometimes to keep them separate whenever I don't have a good feel for the main character. there is her best friend who is off at college, there's the girl grace who died, there Sutton who was Jonathan's girlfriend who was.injured. even more confusing is her boyfriend Graham and her I don't even know what to call him... Henry. They flirted back and forth a lot and I think that they used to have more of a connection but now she's with Graham but Henry continues to be in the story and it was kind of hard to figure out where he fit into everything.

     The cheating in this one bothered me, and wish that it would have been absent, because I don't think that it really added that much as far as character growth. 

    The ending was well enough, but I wish that Jonathan would have made some different choices. Amanda had learned some things about herself and was on the way to make some decent changes as a result. 

Bottom Line: Liked it but had some issues.

My question to you, my lovely readers:
Do you know anyone who has driven under the influence? Do you think it could be easy to misjudge your ability?