Monday, August 19, 2019

REVIEW: Broken Symmetry by Dan Rix


Broken Symmetry

Sixteen-year-old Blaire Adams can walk through mirrors.

It’s called breaking symmetry. To her, a mirror feels like a film of honey. She can reach through it, grab things…even step inside.

On the other side she lives every teenager’s fantasy: a universe all her own, zero consequences. She can kiss the hot guy, break into La Jolla mansions, steal things…even kill. When finished, she just steps back into reality and smashes the mirror—and in an instant erases every stupid thing she did. Gone. It never happened.

But breaking symmetry is also dangerous. First there’s the drug-like rush she gets when passing through the glass, like a shot of adrenaline. She suspects it’s degrading her body, making a new copy of her each time. A reflection of a reflection, each one a little hazier. Then, of course, there’s the risk of getting cut off from reality.

When she narrowly escapes a military quarantine zone with the San Diego Police Department hot on her heels only to discover her escape mirror littering the floor in shards, her worst fear is realized. Now, trapped in a broken reflection, she must flee through a mind-bending maze of mirrors, going deeper into the nightmare as she struggles to grasp a betrayal, uncover the chilling truth about her ability, and somehow find a way out of a dead-end universe that “never happened.”

Somehow, she must find a way home.





MY THOUGHTS
I love books featuring parallel universes! When I saw this one hiding in my ebook library, I immediately wanted to read it. It took the book too long to get interesting, but it did have a lot of unique concepts.

Blaire's father has been missing for a while and when he is finally found, he doesn't seem like himself. He doesn't even recognize Blaire and, unfortunately, he dies before Blaire cane find out where he went. All he left was a mysterious notebook, but the police have taken it as evidence before Blaire could read it herself. Blaire wants to find out what happened so she decides to ask her dad's boss and she ends up in an internship that isn't what it seems.

First of all, the synopsis on Goodreads that originally made me want to read this book is hugely misleading. It takes over 100 pages to even get to the mirror thing and most of the synopsis doesn't even happen in the book until almost the very end. This made me almost give up on the book because it took forever to get to what I thought was the plot of the book. To be honest, so much of the first 100 pages were completely unnecessary. Once I got past that and the parallel universe aspect came into play, I did find the book a lot more interesting. I do think it takes the concept of parallel universes in an unusual direction and does its best to explain it. I guessed some things pretty early on, but the book still went in surprising and very dark directions.

I had difficulty with Blaire at times. She made very reckless decisions in the beginning and I constantly felt secondhand embarrassment. It also frustrated me when she wouldn't figure things out that seemed obvious to me. As the story continued, I did like her more and she seemed to think more before she acted.

As far as romance goes, it was okay, I guess. It's really hard for me to like romance in books. By the end of it, I admit that I was hoping that something would work for them because things got really dark, but for the most part, I didn't feel anything between them. He was the only guy around her age in the book so it kind of felt like they were together because of proximity. He was also incredibly reckless, dangerously so, and he continued on his reckless path throughout the book.

IN CONCLUSION
Overall, I did end up liking the book by the end. I know I sound more negative than positive, but the aspects I thought were the most interesting are major spoilers. I am glad that I decided to continue reading this book after the slow beginning.

I hereby give this book
3.5 Stars
Meaning: I liked it, but it wasn't quite amazing.

1 comment :

  1. I love parallel universes and the blurb definitely sounds appealing, so I think I'd share your frustration that it takes so long to get to the advertised plot! Sounds like it gets quite good though once it does get going. And to be honest I love a good story with someone on the run through alternate universes or whatever, so I may end up getting this one!

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