BREAKING GLASS by Lisa Amowitz

Breaking Glass
Lisa Amowitz

Rating: C-
Release Date: 07/09/13
Synopsis:
On the night seventeen-year-old Jeremy Glass winds up in the hospital with a broken leg and a blood alcohol level well above the legal limit, his secret crush, Susannah, disappears. When he begins receiving messages from her from beyond the grave, he's not sure whether they're real or if he's losing his grip on reality. Clue by clue, he gets closer to unraveling the mystery, and soon realizes he must discover the truth or become the next victim himself.

My thoughts on the book:
Let me start off this review by saying that there is a ton of positive feedback regarding Breaking Glass, and I can see why. The writing is top notch, the pacing is perfect, the plot is intriguing, and the mystery is suspenseful. However, I absolutely loathed every single character in the book, including Jeremy. This ruined the entire novel for me, and I found myself not caring what happened to any of them because of that.  If you're not a big character person, then you're sure to love this book. Otherwise, you may want to check it out from the library before buying. 

None of the characters in this book was what I would consider to be a decent person. They all had horrible and vile secrets, and Jeremy himself was obsessive, temperamental, and obnoxious, to say the least. If any of the characters had even one redeeming quality, I may have enjoyed this book a lot more. As it stood, I found myself wishing everyone would just get killed in some horrible and painful way so that I could feel like justice had been served. I hated the characters as "people," and did not like "living" around them for the time it took me to read this novel. The characters were well-developed and dynamic, but I just could not stand any of them. 

Characters aside, this book was extremely well-written, and Amowitz did a fantastic job with the mystery. I was kept guessing throughout the entire novel, and she definitely surprised me in the end. I did not see half of what was discovered coming. The pacing was perfect, and I really enjoyed the "Then" and "Now" segments and now they told a complete story. Also, Amowitz's switching of tenses between the two segments really made it seem more realistic and made it flow better. The plot itself is intriguing, and I read until the end in spite of my hatred of the characters just to see if I was right or not. As it turns out, I was wrong, which I loved. The supernatural parts were not handled the best, I thought, and could have used a bit more elaboration and world-building to make them believable. 

Overall, I'd recommend this book to people who are looking for a mystery with supernatural elements that will keep you guessing. If you're not big into characters, or if you have it in you to see the good in absolutely horrible people, then you will adore this novel. If you're like me and hold your characters to a higher moral standard than this, then you may or may not.