Title: Torn Away Author: Jennifer Brown
Published: May 6, 2014
Genre(s): Realistic/Contemporary
Page Count: 288
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Jersey Cameron has always loved a good storm. Watching the clouds roll in and the wind pick up. Smelling the electricity in the air. Dancing barefoot in the rain. She lives in the Midwest, after all, where the weather is sure to keep you guessing. Jersey knows what to do when the tornado sirens sound. But she never could have prepared for this.
When her town is devastated by a tornado, Jersey loses everything. As she struggles to overcome her grief, she's sent to live with relatives she hardly knows-family who might as well be strangers. In an unfamiliar place, can Jersey discover that even on the darkest of days, there are some things no tornado can destroy?
Oh. My. Word. This book. This book. Jennifer Brown has been one of my favorite contemporary YA authors, and I will consistently read any book she writes, but this…this is a whole new level of amazing. Torn Away is so strong, in story and character and impact. It doesn’t make you feel good but it’s undeniably real, and that’s what matters. It matters so much. I’m not a crier by any definition of the term, but I was about a second from tearing up within a chapter, and I continued to be almost-crying until the end. This is such a powerful book. Wow.
Torn Away is a hard book to read, and there’s really no way around that. It’s an impossible situation, something that’s definitely Brown’s specialty. She writes “issues” books that aren’t just those issues on paper. The family dynamics she tends to write are probably the worst, or rather, best. This authors stories hurt so much and they’re rough but boy are they excellent. Jersey’s story in this novel isn’t fun at any point, but the brutal, unflinching portrayal of Jersey’s life is fantastic (in a punch-in-the-gut kind of way).
Yet while Jersey is obviously dealing with tragedy due to losing her mother and sister to the worst tornado in 40 years, I think the truly painful part of her story is what happens after. Yes, her family is dead and that hurts, but what’s worse is how the adults in her life let her down, over and over again. First her stepfather gets rid of her, then her biological father’s family is downright abusive, then her best friend’s mother won’t take her in. Torn Away is just a string of tough breaks in Jersey’s already craptastic summer, and things just would not get better for her. And maybe, as I’ve just described it, all these awful things in Jersey’s life seem like they’d be to0 much, but then I think: if the only people who ever cared about you are dead, what happens? Jersey literally has no one to turn to and nowhere to go, and it’s awful. Awful.
Like I said, this book is a punch in the gut. And it’s so good, but it isn’t a light read.
There’s just something so raw and intensely vulnerable about Torn Away. It’s a fairly short novel, but it doesn’t feel too short. (Honestly, if I’d had to spend any more time with Jersey’s horrifying father, I would have curled up and died.) I can always count on Jennifer Brown to be realistic and honest with a situation. She doesn’t go out of her way to turn things into a Happily Ever After at the end, which is good, since it would ring false.
Seriously, I just can’t. Hate List and Bitter End were amazing books and I loved them lots, but Brown just blew it all away with this book. Torn Away is uncomfortable and I loved it because it didn’t make me feel good. Jersey’s story is tough to read, but it’s important. An excellent, excellent book.
