Review: Unbreak My Heart

Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: May 22nd 2012
Pages: 240
Source: Library
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Goodreads

Sophomore year broke Clementine Williams’ heart. She fell for her best friend’s boyfriend and long story short: he’s excused, but Clem is vilified and she heads into summer with zero social life.

Enter her parents’ plan to spend the summer on their sailboat. Normally the idea of being stuck on a tiny boat with her parents and little sister would make Clem break out in hives, but floating away sounds pretty good right now.

Then she meets James at one of their first stops along the river. He and his dad are sailing for the summer and he’s just the distraction Clem needs. Can he break down Clem’s walls and heal her broken heart?

Told in alternating chapters that chronicle the year that broke Clem’s heart and the summer that healed it, Unbreak My Heart is a wonderful dual love story that fans of Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Susane Colasanti will flock to.

Unbreak My Heart is a very cute summer read that tells the story of Clem as she spends her summer on a boat with her family and figuring out the mistakes she made the past year that ruined her friendship with her best friend of years. On the trip she meets a boy that just might steal her heart, but with the trouble she's been having figuring out what happened to her friendship and a boy she liked back home before everything fell apart, she doesn't know if she can fall for him.

My favorite thing about this book was it's beautiful summer boating setting in which most of the story takes place. The whole setting has a very warm and beautiful feeling to it and I love the adventure and beauty that comes to mind when I picture it.

This story has a very strong hold on the importance of family communication and trust. Clem's little sister Olive appears in the story a lot, and she is always there to support and help Clem as well as add a little humor and cuteness to any situation. Her parents are also great people in the the story, they don't push for her to tell them what happened to her friendship but when she finally does they support her all the way and help her get over her troubles once and for all.  


The love interest, James is a boy who is taking the same trip with his father during the summer as Clem and her family is. I felt that James was very cute and a very nice boy, but I really didn't see why Clem would have been interested in him. James felt more like friend material then boyfriend material to me. 

Unbreak My Heart has a strong focus on friendship and being loyal to your friends as well as friendship resolutions. I really liked this part of the book because most young adult fiction seems to focus on romance and romantic relationships while this one was more about the emotional journey that Clem goes through after loosing her friend, Amanda. 

Other than the friendship aspect of the story, I really stated to hate Clem's best friend by the end of the story. Once the whole story of how Clem lost her friendship was let out I realized how both friends were at fault and how they both made mistakes. Clem was the one who made a mistake, and I understand how Amanda would take that, but after that Amanda refused to listen to Clem and she also did something that made me really mad, but I don't want to get into any spoilers so I can't really elaborate.


During more than half of the book Clem was very emotional and shut up in her room away from her family and the beautiful summer that was going on around her. I really didn't like how moody and anti-social that Clem was for nearly all of the book. She only became a happier person for the last few chapters of the book after she has told everyone whats been going on in her life and figures out what she's really upset about. 


Overall I liked this book but some of the characters really didn't cut it for me and I felt like there was way to much emotional-social-withdrawal going on during a lot of the book.