Review: Beautiful Broken Girls by Kim Savage

Beautiful Broken Girls by Kim Savage
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Release Date: Feb 21st, 2017
Purchase: Amazon

Mira and Francesca Cillo—beautiful, overprotected, odd—seemed untouchable. But Ben touched seven parts of Mira: her palm, hair, chest, cheek, lips, throat, and heart. After the sisters drown themselves in the quarry lake, a post-mortem letter from Mira sends Ben on a quest to find notes in the seven places where they touched. Note by note, Ben discovers the mystical secret at the heart of Mira and Francesca's world, and that some things are better left untouched.

My Thoughts:
This was very different than I thought it was going to be.  I expected a dark thriller, but it turned out to be more of a sad story with a dark twist and I have to say it kinda worked.

The whole story is about Ben trying to find out why his neighbors, Mira and Francesca, committed suicide together.  He finds a note shortly after their passing and feels like it's his duty to Mira to find out her story.

Like I said I thought this was going to be a thriller, but it was just really sad.  The more we learn about the two sisters, the sadder it gets and a lot of things start coming to light by the end.  These things are not said in so many words and I kind of wish they had been.  I think it would have given the story another layer that it needed.  Keeping it as it was though did give the story a bit of mystery that was intriguing and let the reader draw their own conclusions.  In my opinion both ways would have worked, but I personally would have liked a better overall explanation.

My favorite thing about this story was the setting.  It felt very Jersey Shorish and mob/old gangster.  I thought this was a fun spin and I liked the way the girls family was described.  They were blood and blood always helped blood.  This helped lighten the story a tad, and it needed that because it was so sad.

One thing that I wished would have been wrapped up was Nick.  I am still not quite sure what his role was and it bothers me a tad.  I think the author left a little too much up to the readers imagination and could have tightened her storylines.  I for one like to have things spelled out for me so I feel a bit off not knowing things for certain.  

I did like this though and enjoyed it more than the authors previous works.  I think this style is just something I will have to get used to if I continue on with Savage (her previous book had the same kind of open endedness) and I think I will because this one was intriguing and fun.

3.5 snowflakes