So What If I'm Broken

by Anna McPartlin

On the 21st June 2007 Alexandra Kavanagh left home, chatted to her neighbour, got onto the DART, arrived at Dalkey train station and disappeared . . . Tom is distraught. His wife is missing, his world has fallen apart and his only focus is on finding her.

For seventeen years, Jane has cared for her son Kurt, her eccentric sister Elle, and her cantankerous mother Rose. The only person she doesn’t care for is herself.

Elle is an artist and recognised as a genius. As such her somewhat erratic behaviour is indulged. Although her life appears perfect Elle’s sadness is sometimes profound.

Leslie has lost her entire family to cancer. She has spent twenty years waiting to die but following radical surgery she’s determined to live again.

Four months after Alexandra’s disappearance Tom steps into a lift with Jane, Elle and Leslie at a Jack Lukeman concert. One hour later the four strangers emerge with their lives forever intertwined.

So What If I’m Broken deals with alcoholism, depression, denial and grief and yet you will find yourself smiling if not laughing throughout.

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit, Contemporary, Romance, Drama, Mystery, Novels

313 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Anna McPartlin is an international best selling author, currently published in 15 languages across 18 countries. Pack Up The Moon and The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes were nominated for Irish book awards. Rabbit Hayes also won a silver readers book award in Germany. In the UK it was a Simon Mayo and Richard and Judy book club pick and in the USA it was a Barnes & Nobel Book of the Month.
In the last few years Anna has been honing her TV scriptwriting skills working on medical drama ‘Holby City’ for the BBC (UK), legal drama ‘Striking Out,’ for RTE (IRE) and historical adaptation Jesus His Life for History Channel (USA).
Anna was nominated for an Irish Film & Television Academy award for her one off bi-lingual drama ‘School Run,’ and is currently in development with Hot Drop Films / Treasure Entertainment and funded by Screen Ireland for the film adaptation of ‘Rabbit Hayes.’ She is also in development for a crime series ‘Serious Crimes,’ with Blinder Productions (Virgin Media) in IRE. A historical crime drama with Noho Film & TV (UK) and ‘Richter,’ an RTE/NZ TV co-production crime drama with Blinder Productions.
Anna’s first children’s book the ‘Fearless Five’ came out May 2019. Her next fiction novel ‘Below The Big Blue Sky,’ is on shelves in UK and IRE in April 2020 and she is currently working on her ninth commercial fiction title.
Anna started out briefly as an actress and stand-up comedian but although her heart wasn’t in performance, she revels in storytelling and shining a light in dark places. Anna’s USP is in tackling difficult subjects with understanding, empathy and humour that spills onto every page.

Reviews

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Blah. So glad to be done with this one. I only finished it because I wanted to see what would happen. It was by an Irish writer...about a woman who disappears and various people who are trying to find her...

I didn't particularly like the characters--most of them didn't seem to have any morals--and in fact I didn't feel as if I really got to understand them at any rate. The writing was just not very strong.

This novel is a classic example of telling rather than showing. And even though I love music, the Jack Lukeman theme felt completely forced and hollow.

Wish I hadn't wasted my time on this one..,

[Pilar · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Maria Lavrador · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não foi um livro que me tivesse prendido logo nas primeiras paginas. Várias personagens com histórias paralelas que acabam por se cruzar mas que me baralharam ao principio. Conforme fui lendo, fui gostando cada vez mais e acabei por o finalizar com uma boa sensação, apesar de achas que as coisas se precipitaram no final, principalmente no que toca ao tal Amor Perdido de que fala o titulo. Mas não dei por mal empregue o tempo que passei a le-lo

[Amanda Vance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anna McPartlin is an author I can count on to give me what I want, characters I can love with real problems, stories that can be sad and aren't always perfect, but some humor and laughter along the ride. I have read her other books and have loved them all, consuming them quickly even when there were things I told myself I'd get done before I continued. Alexandra Gone is no exception. Jane cares for everyone except herself, Elle straddles the line between being ridiculously selfish and having emotional illness, Tom is likable even when he's doing things that are wrong, and Leslie is so relatable (Is that a word? Maybe not.) as a person hiding from her life that you can't help but love them along with all of the other secondary characters.

The book starts out with us missing Alexandra and you wonder what happened to her. Is she dead? Has something happened? Did she just decide one day to disappear and leave her life behind? Haven't we all considered it at least once? And then you realize that even though it does matter to all of these people what happened to her, it's not the real goal of the book to find out.

This book has everything I was looking for, with just a little bit of mystery, some fun, some drama, some insanity, and all of it in one book just like life. But it doesn't get too dark or to difficult to make it through. Fans of Cecelia Ahern will love Anna McPartlin. I can't wait for a new one from her.

http://vancie917.wordpress.com/

[Abril Camino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como siempre, original, diferente y emotiva Anna McPartlin, en una de sus primeras novelas, que no se encuentra traducida al español. Las vidas de cuatro personas que se entrelazan y no siempre todo sale bien, pero disfrutamos de que nos hagan partícipes de sus luchas. Personajes maravillosamente caracterizados y una trama diferente que no deja indiferente. Muy recomendable.

[Sónia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anna McPartlin é conhecida por escrever livros de leitura fluída, mas que nos possibilitam uma reflexão sobre vários pormenores mais sérios. Este não foge à regra e digamos que é o livro da autora com uma abordagem mais "séria" que li. Isto porque se debruça, principalmente, sobre o desaparecimento . Não falo do desaparecimento a que todos, mais dia menos dia, estaremos votados. Falo, sim, do desaparecimento sem rasto, do alguém sair de casa e haver a incógnita Onde estará?

A partir de um tema que, por si, já é delicado, ficamos a par da capacidade de união, amizade e afins, quando a tormenta passa por alguém que nos é próximo. Isto tudo numa linguagem acessível, fluída, porém com substância. Por isso, acho que a capa deste livro não lhe é abonatória. Demasiados floreados, um título típico Chick Lit, quando aqui há muito pouco disso... É pena que esta obra escape a muitos leitores. E de quem é a culpa? Do título e da capa...

[Steffi]

Ich gebe zu, dass meine Freude schon vor Beginn des Buches ein wenig getrübt war, da ich gerade erst ein Buch der Autorin beendet habe, was mir wieder mal nicht gefallen hat. Ich wollte ihr mit diesem Buch eine letzte Chance geben.

Ich habe 102 Seiten durchgehalten, auf denen wieder mal kaum was passiert, auch wenn ich nicht sagen kann, dass das Buch schlecht ist, habe ich es nun abgebrochen. Ich habe keine Lust mich wieder durch 400+ Seiten zu quälen, in denen nicht passiert und die eigentliche Geschichte nach der Hälfte erzählt sein könnte. Auch auf den 100 gelesenen Seiten wurden wieder allerlei Nebensächlichkeiten der unterschiedlichen Charaktere beschrieben. Zudem scheint die Autorin gerne eine Vielzahl an Personen in ihre Geschichten einzubauen.

Meine Lesebegegnungen mit Anna McPartlin erkläre ich hiermit für beendet.

[Bárbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um livro sobre pessoas reais. 4 personagens com histórias igualmente diferentes que vêem a sua vida fundir num encontro de elevador. Uma leitura surpreendentemente leve e rápida que nos faz compreender o silêncio e instinto da depressão bem como a força do amor e amizade na nossa vida.
Primeiro livro que li da autora mas que certamente não será o último.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alexandra, Goneby Anna McPartlin opens with the disappearance of Alexandra one afternoon in Dublin. The reader knows little about her but witnesses her disappearance and the subsequent devastation of her husband, Tom, and her family as they desperately hold out hope that she will be found healthy and safe. While looking for Alexandra, Tom has a chance meeting in a broken elevator with Leslie, Elle and Elle's sister, Jane. The four soon band together in the search for Alexandra and through that process come to know each other and to share their personal tragedies.

Each of the four main characters has their own storyline:

Jane is raising her teenage son alone but still loves her son's father, her teenage sweetheart. She is the matriarch of her family and takes responsibility for not only her sister Elle's career but the rest of life too - she manages her money, provides her with a home and is the rock upon which Elle relies. In addition to Elle, Jane is responsible for their alcoholic mother who lives with her and is prone to rude outbursts.

Elle is the boisterous and unpredictable artist who makes unwise decisions in love and tends to live life in extremes - she is very much the opposite of Jane but their love and affection for each other is clear.

Leslie is the solitary remaining living member of her family - cancer has ravaged the family's gene pool and she has lost both parents and two sisters to the disease. She knows she has the faulty gene that led to the early demise of her sisters due to ovarian or breast cancer and she essentially shuts down, closes herself off from people and relationships while she waits for her inevitable diagnosis and early death.

Tom is devastated by his young wife's disappearance and his life slowly unravels after she goes missing. His relationship with his in-laws is strained as many of them blame him for her disappearance; as a result, he finds himself increasingly alone in his search for his wife and his desperation until he is trapped in the elevator with the three women who sign on for his search and rally around him.

The story is essentially told around the absence of Alexandra - we learn very little about her throughout the novel and the real revelations are in the lives of the four main characters who are tied together in their search for Alexandra. At some point, I found myself almost forgetting about Alexandra as I became more and more drawn into the stories of the four main characters. Because the story is told from the points of view of these four main characters (with a few other minor ones thrown in for good measure), the novel seemed a little choppy to me in the beginning - I felt as if I barely knew any character well enough to care about them and kept wondering when I would learn more about Alexandra. But once I realized that the book was really not about Alexandra and the stories behind each of the four main characters began to unfold, I found I could not put the book down! In the last third of the novel, the revelations come fast and furious for each of the four main characters. Their stories were often very emotional as they dealt with histories of mental illness, sacrificed dreams and the loss of loved ones. I definitely shed a tear or two in the last part of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel - even though some of the themes are quite heavy (death, loss, mental illness), the author infuses the dialogue with humor and quips which helps to lighten the mood of the novel. I am now eager to move onto the other novels by the author currently on my shelf - Pack Up the Moon,Apart from the Crowd, and As Sure As the Sun.

[Jennifer Defoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. The title would suggest that it is about Alexandra, and it is to an extent. But the real story involves the other characters and what they go through while trying to find Alexandra. Really the character Alexandra is just a catalyst to pull all of the other characters together. Not to say that Alexandra isn't part of the plot, because the entire book revolves around finding her, but she's not part of the main stories.

This book reminded me a bit of a Maeve Binchy novel. Even before I read the author bio, and realized that McPartlin also lives in Ireland. I guess it's a similarity in Irish authors, but luckily Maeve Binchy is one of my favorite authors so being similar to one of her books is a good thing (at least in my opinion). The writing is similar and the dialect is the same. While this story doesn't have a Binchy style happy ending it is still very similar.

There was really only one character that I connected with, and that was Leslie. I too have lost family to cancer, and like Leslie am scared every time I go to the doctor that they will find something. Even though I didn't really have a personal connection with the rest of the characters I still liked every one of them. Jane is the levelheaded one. She keeps everyone else "in line" so to speak. Elle is the one that adds drama and excitement to the story. Tom is the one we all want to feel sympathetic for. The rest of the characters help the plot along, but I didn't really feel anything for them. They were just kind of there.

The writing was very good. It was humorous, touching, and romantic. Everything in the story was believable. I didn't feel as if any of the characters were fake, and the dialog was real. There were a few twists that I didn't see coming. And while I knew how the story would end I didn't expect it to take the path it took to get there.

Overall this was a great book. I liked the characters, the plot, and the writing. It's very readable, and I think I could read this again.

[Mariazita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosto muito desta autora, os seus livros são sempre muito emotivos .
Mais um livro com diferentes personagens, cada uma com um problema , e as suas maneiras de os superarem.
Tudo começa com o desaparecimento de Alexandra, Tom o seu marido tenta encontra-la desesperadamente, nessa procura por um mero acaso encontra Jane, uma amiga de infância de Alexandra, a qual não a via a dezassete anos, desde que ainda adolescente engravidou .Jane além de criar o seu filho, tem que ajudar a sua irmã Elle, que tem uma maneira caótica de viver, e ainda a sua mãe Rose, que vive na cave da sua casa e tem um problema de alcoolismo.Leslie junta-se a estes na procura de Alexandra , mas Leslie também tem um verdadeiro drama pessoal, é portadora do mesmo gene que matou toda a sua família , cancro.
E é com esta dramáticas histórias que este livro cativou-me, e ainda assim existe um toque de humor nas personagens que deixam todos estes dramas mais leves de ler.
Muito bom.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once Jane and Alexandra were inseparable – sharing adventures, secrets and big dreams for the future. But when Jane got pregnant at seventeen, they drifted apart. Seventeen years later, Jane discovers Alexandra has disappeared and she sets about helping Alexandra’s broken-hearted husband, Tom, to find his wife. But in searching for Alexandra Jane is about to confront some big questions about herself. Like, what happened to the high-spirited seventeen-year-old she once was? What will happen if she stops trying to control the world? And does love really mean letting people go? Two fractured people come together accidentally and in one another they find strength, friendship – and even the beginnings of hope …

**Please note that this book is also titled So What If I’m Broken and Alexandra, Gone!**

When I read Anna McPartlin’s debut novel Pack up the Moon earlier this year I was so thankful that I had spotted the cover while browsing Google because otherwise I never would have bought the book because I would never have known it existed. I thought Pack up the Moon was stunning, it really blew me away and I quickly collected up the rest of Anna’s books. I managed to get myself a copy of her latest book The One I Love (also known as Alexandra, Gone and So What If I’m Broken?) to review and I started it fully expecting another cracking read and I wasn’t disappointed at all.

At the beginning of The One I Love, the entire Chapter One in fact, we’re introduced to numerous characters; there’s Alexandra, who after writing a note to husband Tom sets off to meet her friend but disappears on route, we meet Elle and Jane who are friends of Alexandra and who are sisters, Elle likes to write letters to the Universe whereas Jane has found herself pregnant at 17, we then meet Leslie, who we learn is cut off from all of her family and friends due to a genetic gene and then finally, we meet Tom, Alexandra’s husband as he sets about trying to find his wife. It’s complete chaos, ranging from 1989 to 1996, to the present day of 2007, told in letter forms and flashbacks, and I was a bit concerned the book would carry on that way. But after setting out the storyline by introducing us to the main characters, and their problems, we then stay in 2007 and the story progresses from there like a proper story should as they try to find Alexandra.

The plot truly is fantastic, because although the basis for the entire plot is Alexandra being missing and Tom’s search to find her, we also learn about Tom, Jane, Elle and Leslie. After meeting at a Jack Lukeman concert, they got stuck in the lift, they all band together to search for Alexandra but they also become friends as well. Yet they all have their own problems: Jane is still in love with her son Kurt’s dad Dominic, Elle has deep-set issues with the world, Leslie lives her life under a cloud, constantly being hounded by a gene that has harmed other family members and Tom is just looking for his wife. As they all try to come to terms with their problems, and learn new secrets, and start new relationships you really begin to care about each and every one of them, and I was turning the pages avidly, desperate to carry on reading.

There is no main or lead character in the novel, that’s shared by Jane, Tom, Elle and Leslie and each have their own quirks and foibles that make them their own. I liked them all equally and found them all incredibly well rounded. But what I liked best was that they were all so human. They each made mistakes throughout the novel, little ones, big ones, and for me it just made me like them all the more. Jane was the most family-oriented, looking after her son Kurt as well as her aging, drunk mother Rose and flighty sister Elle, and always put them before herself. Elle, as I’ve said, was flighty and impulsive and a bit of a wild child, and she spoke to me the most I think (for the record, I am nothing like Elle). Leslie was shy, staying alone and away from the world, until her encounter in the lift when she finally decided it was time to stop living like a hermit. And Tom, Tom was brave, when many people would have just left Alexandra for dead, Tom carried on looking for her and I totally admired that in him. He had heart and spirit. In fact, they all had heart and spirit. There are many other, minor, characters in the novel. Rose, Elle and Jane’s spiky mother, Kurt, Jane’s teenage son, Alexandra’s family, her parents and siblings, Leslie’s sister’s widow Jim, they all made their mark and none more so than Alexandra herself. Alexandra herself is in four pages total, but the book is infinitely her. From the memories Jane has of her, to Tom’s memories, her families memories, she just shines off the pages and despite not really knowing her, we do care for her. I’ve no idea how McPartlin pulled that off, but she did, and for me, Alexandra was utterly real.

The One I Love is about a lot of things, but the main thing that will stay with me is written on the front of the book: that no matter what, true friends will not give up and that encompasses the book perfectly. Not only that, but the feeling I got of how each of the characters found themselves, it was immense. McPartlin has pulled off another stunning novel, and for me she ranks up there with Marian Keyes and Melissa Hill in terms of how well she writes and how good she is at crafting a story. The book is told in third-person, moving from Jane to Elle to Leslie to Tom, which works fantastically well and I never got lost off despite there being so much going on. I adored the book, and Anna is two for two with me so far and I look forward to getting stuck into her other two novels. I sincerely hope she’s working on another novel – and many other novels in the future – as she’s definitely an author you want to be reading. She may not be huge in the UK, I can’t really speak for Ireland, but she deserves to be. I am a huge fan.

[Sonia189 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gostei de algumas coisas, de algumas cenas e das emoções associadas a essas cenas.
Mas não achei nada necessário que as personagens tivessem uma atitude aparentemente tão fácil para com as situações que enfrentavam, nomeadamente nas relações amorosas.
Esta história podia ter sido ainda mais tocante e especial, acho eu, se o caminho tivesse sido ligeiramente diferente.

[Sammy Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love her books, you know who you are ladies, it's your kind of read 😊

[Ola Abdullah · Rating 2 out of 5]

" Sometimes it feels like my mind is on a treadmill and i'm trying to reach the stop button but i can't and with every second that passes i feel like i'm about to fall of"

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one

[Carla Faleiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sabe, quem passou pela experiência, que perder alguém é algo que nos deixa no limite. Mas perder alguém para algo desconhecido é passar além do desespero.
Alexandra sai de casa um dia e nunca mais volta... O marido Tom acredita que ela está perdida algures, a sua mãe Breda sente que o coração da sua filha ainda bate, mas a verdade é terrível.

Este é o mote para mais um livro de Anna McPartlin, um livro cheio de sentimentos, que nos deixa na mesma angustia que os personagens.

Esta autora tem o dom de nos fazer chorar pelos seus personagens, de nos fazer querer que tudo lhes corra bem, de acreditar que há sempre um final feliz. Mas há coisas que estão para além do nosso alcance...

Um livro que vale bem a pena ser lido.

[Felicity · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed a number of the characters in this book. I found it slow moving however and struggled to get back to it on a couple of occasions. I found the writing style clear and consistent and I did like the music references scattered throughout.

The simplicity of both the characters and the plot was nice and there were no dramatic inconsistencies but this also made it feel a bit slow in places as there was a "well thats no surprise" feeling about some of the revelations.

Overall I would recommend this book and I will try more by this author in future as I had not read anything from her before.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I began this book, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or how the story would progress. I enjoyed the story and loved the fact that it was written in a different and quite refreshing style from typical chick-lit books. It explored the relationships between a group of people and was sad in places but there were one or two laugh out loud moments. This is the first book that I had read by this author and I would be happy to try more of her books.

[June Guymon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that has interesting character studies along with a little mixture of humor. Just OK for me.

[lea.reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mit dieser Geschichte habe ich mich leider etwas schwer getan...
Zu Beginn kam ich kaum in die Geschichte rein und hatte schon Angst,ich rutsche in eine Leseflaute...
Die Grundidee,mit dem Vermisstenfall und dem Aufeinandertreffen Fremder,die später zu Freunden werden,fand ich an sich sehr schön.
Jedoch hat der Schreibstil der Autorin meinen Lesefluss beeinträchtigt.
Denn sie wollte möglichst viele Infos in einen Satz packen,was mich am Anfang unfassbar gestört hat und ich dadurch wenig Lust verspürt habe,weiterzulesen.
Mit der Zeit habe ich mich einigermaßen an den Schreibstil und diese abrupten Sprünge zwischen den Protagonisten gewöhnt und konnte es etwas flüssiger lesen.
Das Ende hat mir leider überhaupt nicht zugesagt...
Ich hätte mir gewünscht,dass noch etwas intensiver mit dem Vermisstenfall umgegangen wird und man noch mehr dazu erfährt.
Stattdessen endete das Buch mit E-Mails,die für mich irgendwie fehl am Platz waren...

[Eden High · Rating 3 out of 5]

So What If I'm Broken was an interesting, if at times, slow read.

It was well written and presented an interesting storyline. The characters stories had fairly predictable outcomes, as we have seen in other books covering, death, cancer, alcoholism, etc;

The interesting concept for me, was that four people stuck in a lift together for one hour then become so interwoven in each other's lives. It was a starting point of the story that caught my attention.

This was not a hard read, just lost itself at times and if I (again) could give 3 1/2 stars on this rating system I would.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book from my sister's collection and it was not at all what I expected. I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of a run-of-the-mill suspense story we are given a story about a realistic yet quirky group of characters and their struggles. I really enjoy books that draw me into a character and her life, and this did that for me. I particularly empathized with Jane, though Elle and Leslie's stories also became important to me.

[Lisa Tran · Rating 5 out of 5]

i never believed that i can get back my love until i meet a man called Leker who help me bring back my ex-wife who left me for two years before our marriage, he work beyond my imaginations and today i am happy in my married you can visit his page now
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇https://www.facebook.com/Dr-leker-spe...

[Monica Mil-Homens · Rating 4 out of 5]

(...) Esta é uma história de coragem, de luta contra a depressão, da angústia da ausência de quem mais amamos e da incerteza do que a vida nos trás. É a história de como precisamos sempre tanto uns dos outros, mesmo dos estranhos para que nos possamos erguer e seguir aquilo que sempre quisermos. E nunca desistir até que não seja possível mais lutar. (...) Review completa aqui - https://bibliotecamil.wordpress.com/2...

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

No início, a leitura é difícil. Muitas personagens com histórias paralelas. Depois, começa a fluir. O foco no desaparecimento é muito grande mas o fim parece apressado. Embora seja uma leitura divertida pela forma como as personagens falam entre si, a história não me cativou muito. Muitos romances cruzados que eram dispensáveis e é um pouco previsível.

[Mina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was soll ich sagen? Ich wollte ein emotionales Buch und das habe ich auch bekommen. Und irgendwie sind mir sogar wirklich die meisten Charaktere mit all ihren Eigenheiten ans Herz gewachsen, auch wenn ich das lange Zeit nicht gedacht hätte.

[Natasha du Plessis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read, I just love reading Anna McPartlin. Whilst searching for Alexandra a lot of things happen and friendships are formed. I would recommend this book, for that matter any book by Anna McPartlin.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

when thinking about it as a Sunday-afternoon literature and rating this in such frames - I liked i very much. Vividly pictures characters (oh Elle and Leslie!) and a nice, heart-warming story but not without several problems happening in the way. You know: pure life!

[booksaretherealmagic]

Ja. Es war okay... Ich hatte an vielen Stellen nicht unbedingt das Gefühl, dass es einen roten Faden gab. Die Handlung ist so vor sich hingeplätschert und mich hat erst gegen Ende so halbwegs interessiert, wie es weitergeht. Das war leider kein Buch für mich.