Welcome to my stop on the Every Shattered Thing by Elora Ramirez Blog Tour! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy my review.
Book links:
Synopsis:
Stephanie fights reality every day. The voices inside, the ones declaring her worth, deem her broken, used and dirty. She is an object. A toy. Something to be tossed aside when bored. Who will believe her if she whispers the truth about her wrecking ball of a family? Eventually, her secret explodes and the person who means the most to her knows just how shattered she is and why she’s so afraid. But rescue is closer than she realizes. Hidden in plain sight, her horror hasn’t been ignored by everyone. Racing against the truth of what she faces, forces are joining together and developing a plan to free her from the hell in her own backyard. And while she’s at her lowest point, she’s hit with the beauty of love at any cost – redemption in the face of ruin. Will it be enough?
*Warning: Contains mature content that may not be suitable for younger audiences*
My review:
Every Shattered Thing is a novel from author Elora Nicole Ramirez and deals with some pretty dark and upsetting situations but it’s those situations that left me loving the characters and really pulling for them from the very first chapter.
To say that Stephanie has had an awful life would be a terribly gross understatement. Her father has abused her both physically and sexually for too many years to count and her mother isn’t much better. As if that’s not horrid enough, her poor excuse for a father has some friends that like to use Stephanie as well. What’s even worse is the community’s lack of action and empathy. The teachers see her bruises, but do nothing. Stephanie is actually relieved they stopped calling the police. Why? Because the police already know about it. A few of the police are her father’s friends. And they use Stephanie, too. So calling the police or CPS only makes her life worse….as if that was possible. There are two things keeping Stephanie in this town and in this situation. Her little brother and her boyfriend. Her little brother needs her to keep him safe from their abusive parents and she needs her boyfriend to remind her that there is at least one kind and caring person in this world. But for all of the darkness and despair in Stephanie’s life, she always remembers there is hope. Hope for a better life someday. Hope for some justice. Hope to be free of all of this pain and suffering. The sun always rises the next day and with that sunrise comes the hope of a brand new day with new possibilities….of peace and love. Will she ever be free of her old life and able to find a new one?
Oh my, this book was really heavy. But it was also a stark reminder that there are very similar and very real situations happening in this world right this very minute. I appreciated Elora bringing these situations to life in this book because sometimes we need a reminder that there is someone out there in need of help. Maybe it will be a call to action for some readers and that would be an amazing thing. Stephanie absolutely broke my heart. She broke my heart not because of what she is going through, but because her spirit, though buried deep, was never broken. I can’t imagine living her life. Now, onto the rest of the characters. I wish Stephanie’s father a long afterlife in hell. And I wish his “friends” ended up there to join him. Oh, and her mom, too. They all deserve a special kind of hell. But Kevin, Stephanie’s boyfriend, is beyond special. He’s a football star and I admired his ability to look past outer appearances and to be able to discover who Stephanie is a person. He picks her up when she is beyond down and is always there to remind her that she is worthy of a happy life. This brings me to the ending….which I have to say I had a love/hate relationship with. It gave me some closure and hope for Stephanie but was also a bit of a cliffhanger. (Knowing that some of you aren’t fans of cliffhanger endings, I feel as though I should mention it.)
There is (hopefully!) going to be a book two and I will be anxiously waiting to see what the future holds for Stephanie and Kevin.
Thank you, Elora, for a relevant, harrowing and poignant story that will stay with me for quite some time. I will be thinking of Stephanie and Kevin until the next installment!
Four Loves
About the author:
Elora Ramirez lives in Austin, Texas with her chef-husband. At the age of four, she taught herself how to read and write, cutting her teeth on books like Dr. Seuss and writing anywhere she could find the space–including her Fisher Price kitchen set, the pages of picture books and Highlights Magazine. Since then, she’s grown to love the way words feel as they swell within her bones. Writing holy and broken is her calling, and pushing back the darkness and pursuing beauty through story is her purpose. She embraces the power of story and teaches women from all parts of the world how to embrace theirs. She has a knack of calling things out , the truth and the detail, the subversive threads that make a life a story. She loves hip-hop, wishes she lived by the beach and cannot write without copious amounts of coffee, chocolate, music, and her husband’s lavender liqueur.
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