Review: Broken by A.E. Rought

Title: Broken
Author: A.E. Rought
Series: Stand Alone
Published By: Strange Chemistry (Jan. 3, 2013)
Source: ARC Copy Provided by the Publisher ( in exchange for an honest review)
Genre: YA Fantasy
My Rating: 4 Stars!

Goodreads Description:
 Imagine a modern spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where a young couple’s undying love and the grief of a father pushed beyond sanity could spell the destruction of them all.

A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry's boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetery and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.

When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she's intrigued despite herself. He's an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely... familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel's.

The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there's something very wrong with Alex Franks. And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks' estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.

My Review:   

  I am going to start off this review by admitting that yes this book has some things wrong with it. It has an insta-love, which okay, sometimes I do enjoy. It has a plot that is very much detailed (too detailed) in the synopsis so not a whole lot is left to the imagination and okay, at times things were a little too description. I mean, I don't need to know every single thing Emma ever eats or drinks. And yes there were some very typical cliches that seem to be prevalent in YA books right now, but, having said all of that. I seriously loved this book.

I can't help it. I was pulled right into the story, insta love and some sappy love lines and all. It was just one of those stories that I couldn't put down and ate up every line and cliché it had and instead of being disgusted by them, I couldn't get enough of them.

I admit that I have never read the real Frankenstein story (although I have seen the old black and white movie) so I really don't have that to compare this modern telling too but I still, really enjoyed it. I know, I am starting to sound like a broken record here.

I don't want to give too much away but I loved Alex. He had this little lost boy, hate/despise himself vulnerability thing going for him that I just found endearing. I mean, if my father would have done half the things his did, because of him and for him, then yeah, I would feel a little disgusted with myself too, even if I never asked for him to do those things and had no control over them.

Some of the sweetest lines in this book were ones that Alex gave Emma and I couldn't help it, the romantic in me ate them up.

And while I wouldn't classify this book as horror, there were some very disturbing images and scenes in here that left me cringing a little.

Really I think this was done well even considering the clichés and I truly did enjoy it.