Broken

June 2, 2008
English writer Clay's disjointed debut traces the story of Skunk Cunningham, an 11-year-old girl living with her father, brother and au pair. One day, Skunk watches as local thug Bob Oswald beats teenager Rick Buckley. Bob, whose five daughters go to school with Skunk, is one-dimensionally horrible and has no qualms about bullying kids or teachers as he protects his daughters. Skunk and crew, meanwhile, spend their days in school steering clear of the Oswald girls, who are as psycho as their father. Between bouts of violence, things in the British suburb are quiet, and Rick becomes a virtual prisoner in his home, only to later emerge as a “broken” and violent beast. The novel is nearly plotless and overflows with generalized nastiness, and the grim proceedings, while initially discomforting, don't do anything except pile on and become banal.

July 1, 2008
Something terrible has happened in Hedge End, a small town in the south of England. Readers learn this fact immediately, when they discover that the novels occasional narrator, an 11-year-old girl named Skunk, is in a coma. Much of what follows is the story of how and why she got there, beginning with the very public humiliation and beating of her teenage neighbor, Rick Buckley, whom she thereafter thinks of as Broken Buckley (hence the title). Ricks plight is the work of the awful Oswalds, a sociopathic family of losers and layabouts who are the bane of the neighborhood. Initially, Broken reads like a wryly humorous satire of modern English mores, but it quickly devolves into something darkermuch darker. It becomes a horrifying meditation on the death of innocence, the end of love, and the futility of existence. The story is beautifully written, but the plots endless parade of atrocities makes for very difficultthough addictive (What awful thing will happen next?)reading. An infusion of hope near the end will redeem the experience for some readers; for others, it will be a case of too little, too late.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)