Book Review - Break by Hannah Moskowitz

Thursday August 27, 2009

Break
by Hannah Moskowitz
Available August 25, 2009
Jonah is on a mission to break every bone in his body. Everyone knows that broken bones grow back stronger than they were before. And Jonah wants to be stronger—needs to be stronger—because everything around him is falling apart. Breaking, and then healing, is Jonah's only way to cope with the stresses of home, girls, and the world on his shoulders. This is the story of his self-destructive spiral, his rock-bottom moment, and how he finally learns to accept help and find true strength through recovery.

Right off I can tell you that this book is not for the faint of heart...more than a few times I found myself skimming through the sections where Jonah describes his many injuries on his path to breaking every bone in his body. On the other hand that is always a sign of great writing when the reader gets such a visual representation of the written word that it causes an actual physical reaction (in other words me getting queasy!)

Jonah has a lot of issues...a brother with deadly (this is no exaggeration) food allergies. I mean the poor guy can basically only drink these special blended drinks and he needs a lifetime supply of Benedryl...a baby brother who cries non-stop day and night and, well, obviously distracted parents. Jonah is constantly stressed out about the health of his brother who seems to be in and out of the hospital with horrible allergy attacks that almost bring him to the brink of death!

With the help of his best friend Naomi, who is filming his "accidents" as some sort of bizarre documentary, Jonah sets out on his goal of breaking bones. Whether its skateboarding or using a hammer...lets just say mission accomplished. He has to get pretty creative when trying to explain the injuries and before too long, he just can't hide it anymore.

I think that most readers will see the significance of Jonah hurting himself soon after something happens that causes more stress or anxiety for him. Most of the time when we think of self-mutilating, we think of girls who cut themselves or as a lot of teens refer to them "cutters". Jonah's story shows us the "macho" side of self-mutilating, which is almost more scary because I think a lot of us might write it off as "boys will be boys" especially in the age of TV shows like Jack Ass and Scarred. Luckily Jonah has a few people in his life who really care about him and confront him on his destructive habits.

This is a well written book that takes a tough and honest look at what lengths teens will go to in order to manifest emotional pain into something that is real and tangible. Ms. Moskowitz (who was around 17 years-old when she wrote the story) does an excellent job drawing the reader in and making you really care about Jonah and his family. Readers will definitely want to keep reading to see how Jonah's story ends.

Appropriate for 8th grade and up.

Author website: www.UntilHannah.com

Hannah's blog