The twist with Naomi threw me for a loop. The whole story was set up such that she liked Jonah - she doesn't like seeing him with Charlotte even though she likes Charlotte, she wears his sweatshirt, she encourages him to break his bones, etc. So I didn't understand why she suddenly went for Jesse. This is the story of four generations of Metis women and their families. It explores their love for one another and bond through life’s daily struggles, stresses and horrors. It is a heart-breaking and haunting novel that will stay with me for quite a while. It’s a lot of stress for a 17 year old kid, which probably explains why Jonah has also gone a little bit nuts. So apparently when you break a bone it heals stronger. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but Jonah certainly believes it is, and that’s why he’s embarked on a mission to break every bone in his body. As crazy as this sounds Jonah actually has a well thought out system of logic behind his quest, and slowly figuring out where his mind was at with this was one of my favourite aspects of the book. (Hint: it's not as obvious as you might think).

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But why break bones? Why not try to snort a line of gummi bears and get a face tattoo like a normal person?

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So Jonah is trying to strengthen himself, and Naomi is helping him along. No one else knows what he's planning. Some may be offended by the excessively obscene language, but I think it amazingly fits the story so well that it wouldn't be the same without it. Authored by a senior in high school, this debut novel would make a veteran author proud. Jonah worries about a lot. He worries about his parents, worries about the fact his baby brother cries all the time, but most of all he worries about his younger brother, Jessie, who is severe and life-threatening allergies. After being hurt in a car accident, Jonah has started trying to break every bone in his body to make himself stronger. He is helped by his best friend, Naomi, who films him breaking his bones. As Jonah moves deeper and deeper into pain and breaking, the question is who is worrying enough about Jonah to help him. After mulling over it for several days, The Break seems slightly weaker to me in retrospect than it did while I was reading it.

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When I first saw The Break at the bookstore it caught my interest but I decided against it as it had a trigger warning for violence. I can be sensitive to violence however knowing in advance it does take some of the sensitivity away. I saw it again at the library and knew then that I was going to have to read it. It was definitely a good read for me. I felt that Katherena Vermette handled the violence well and is so well written that I didn't feel sensitive towards it at all. What were you doing during your junior year in high school? Chasing boys? Cheering on the home team? Worrying about the perfect prom dress (or if you were even going to make it to prom)? Fighting with your parents because of their crazy restrictive curfews?All of the characters in this novel are bound together in one way or another, by family, friendship, secrets or silence - and their survival depends on the support they glean from those around them. At times he finds himself looking for rats or mice for lunch. .... they do make a tasty meal in these times of diminishing food and supplies. Add a potato and a carrot and a dash of Tabasco and you've got a great stew. Along the way, Jeremiah has adopted a series of dogs, that he calls "Joe" ... most prove to be excellent zombie hunters. Jeremiah considers paranoia an essential survival skill. The CCB, Concerned Citizens Brigade controls large swaths of the Northwest ... which he encounters on his travels in an attempt to reach Seattle. They were notorious for taking women and children as slaves, raping the women and killing the men on sight. Basically a gang of convicts, thugs, and murderers. Ultimately, I don't feel like things were really resolved at the end. Jonah may have agreed to stop breaking himself, but the family was still so screwed up, and didn't seem to be reaching for any kind of improvement. The author also shows the effects upon the women and their children of the effects of the denigration and abuse from the wider culture.

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This book opens up to a trigger warning to it’s readers but I felt that KATHERENA VERMETTE handled the violence very well and although some of the details was hard to read at times, was very sad and depressing it is an important piece of Canadian culture and I really appreciated the author giving a voice to these indigenous Manitoban women. This was another sisters read and our varying viewpoints provided for an interesting and diverse discussion. The themes of pain, abuse, trauma and the stories & fear that we are forced to carry as women and people of colour were very well explored and the language (despite the constant repetition of the word 'gross' which bugged me slightly) was beautiful, simple and poetic. Less convincing were the parents. I had trouble accepting that they could be so very bad at looking after Jesse and dealing with his allergies. Or that they could be so blind to the fact that their other son was regularly doing himself serious damage. It’s not that I doubt such parents exist, they just seemed to be a bit over the top with their failing in this book. In Vermette's gritty debut novel, a nominee for Canada's 2016 Governor General's Award for fiction, a thirteen-year-old girl is brutally assaulted in a snowy vacant lot. It is late at night, and a young mother whose house abuts the land, views the scene, "freezes", and then calls the police. One of the officers, Tommy Scott, like both the victim and the witness to the crime, is Metis (a person of mixed aboriginal and European ancestry). He is determined to get to the bottom of what occurred. Crimes involving "Nates" (natives) are ho-hum, routine occurrences to Officer Christie, Scott's older, white, police partner. (A stereotypically overweight, slow-moving frequenter of Tim Horton's coffee shops, Christie is weary of the messiness of people's lives and policing in general). One senses there is no real will to investigate much of the crime that goes down in this part of town. Racism simmers here in north-end Winnipeg.Sensory details kept us close to the action and provided color to the story. Sanchez has an excellent grasp, too, on the complications of community and the settlements he creates for the novel each feel unique and believable. Thank you so much to Edelweiss, House of Anansi Press, and Katherena Vermette for the opportunity to read a copy of this book in exchange for a review. And below the surface of the story, shared memories and metaphors link their two minds, as MacLaverty shows how decades of intimacy work to mingle consciousnesses as well as experience, and yet how far we remain unknowable to each other. In some ways the novel is a study in perspective, as the pair move between intimacy and distance. So I avoid any stating of my age, like, ever, in the hope that if no one says it, no one will know about it and I can stay age- free until the end of time. (My one regret is that I didn’t adopt this attitude when I was twenty-seven, but I knew nothing when I was twenty-seven.)

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I liked the first part of it a lot. It was witty, intense. It was fast-paced. All of the characters were horrifyingly relatable. Jesse is wonderful and beautiful and ugh. Charlotte…wonderful and probably should have ran like the wind. Naomi is frustrating and sort of awful. Moskowitz did an outstanding job of creating that are relatable, they have problems, feelings, and circumstances that are are not only associated with teens, but adults as well. Moskowitz’s did an excellent job with her portrayal of Jonah. I didn’t expect a young writer to conquer such a feat so well!What an incredible debut! Moskowitz is an extremely talented writer! Break was full of fantastically portrayed three dimensional characters and an insane central idea. A goal to break every bone in your body? How does that not pique your curiosity. Well, it did mine and this lead to me completely devouring the entire novel in one setting. Hannah Moskowitz delivers a passionate debut about one boy struggle to make his world sane by being insane. It's a story that I'll never forget! I just couldn't believe that Jonah would willingly remove himself from his home. It was clear that he believed his parents were incompetent, which set off Jesse's allergies constantly. Since Jesse is obviously so important to him, I just can't see him leaving without putting up a serious fight. In Elsewhere, Rosie Boland reflects on thirty years of traveling solo around the globe. Boland shares in intimate detail her experiences in some of the most remote places on Earth and how travel can change your life. Through joy and heartache, Boland sees the beauty and majesty of the world bloom before her.