Review: 3.5-4 out of 5 Stars for this grief- and regret-laden book
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 9, 2014
Nova Reed:"People say that time heals all wounds, and maybe they're right. But what if the wounds don't heal correctly, like when cuts leave behind nasty scars, or when broken bones mend together, but aren't as smooth anymore?""In the rarest of moments, I manage to get it right: to smile without feeling guilty about it."Quinton Carter:"I get high, I dry meaningless shit, and I f***. That's it. Because if I do anything else, my life will have purpose and I deserve to be miserable until my life comes to an end, which is hopefully soon."Nova Reed and Quinton Carter are two messed-up souls living a life of regrets. Nova found her boyfriend after he committed suicide and carries the weight of his guilt on her shoulders, convinced she could have avoided it. Now she barely manages to get ahead in life, afraid of the unknown, and trying to deal with it by obsessive-compulsive counting, the only things helping her to have a little "control". Quinton carries the weight of death on his shoulder, as he's the only survivor of a car crash in which he was the driver, and which killed both his girlfriend Lexi and her friend Ryder. His only way to cope is to get high on weed, and wait for death because he feels like he doesn't deserve to live.When their worlds collide, they discover a mutual attraction for each other, but whereas Nova feels like she needs to help Quinton as a way of making amends for not having avoided her boyfriend's suicide, Quinton is afraid of commitment due to a promise he made to Lexi and especially because he doesn't want to drag her into his self-induced downwards spiral.But it's already too late as Nova is dragged into Quinton's circle and has her first taste of weed, helping her to numb her guilt...This was a very dark read and very interesting. I read many "dealing with grief" stories but never once have I read one that so deeply dives into drug-abuse as a way of coping. It was a new approach to dealing with regrets and grief, and I was fascinated by how Jessica Sorensen depicts Nova and Quinton's thinking through alternating points of view.The only thing I'd like to criticise would be the pace, as the book has a weird one, where some events move really slowly and then suddenly you find yourself propelled to much later in time... And in the end, looking at the big picture ie. the entire book, not too much has happened.That's because Breaking Nova is just the beginning of Nova and Quinton's story and this first part's morally is that you have to help yourself first before you are able to help someone else. There's not really a cliffhanger, but it entices you to read the next book in the series. I am already onto the sequel Saving Quinton - which I will review very shortly - and am looking forward to reading more books from Jessica Sorensen.