Fierce Fragile Hearts
Fierce Fragil Hearts is the stunning companion novel to Sara Barnard's YA bestseller Beautiful Broken Things. It is about leaving the past behind, the friends who form your future, and learning to find love, in all its forms.
Author: Sara Barnard
Publisher: Pan MacMillan Australian
Release date: 12th February 2019
Pages: 384 pages
R.R.P: $16.99
Two years after a downward spiral took her as low as you can possibly go, Suzanne is starting again. Again she's back in Brighton, the only place she felt she belonged, back with her best friends Caddy and Rosie. But they're about to leave for university. When your friends have been your light in the darkness, what happens when you're the one left behind?
My Review
Thoughts on the book: (Contains spoilers)
Fierce Fragil Hearts is the companion novel to Sara Barnard's Beautiful Broken Things. This time around we get to be inside Suzanne's head and learn how someone who has been abused deals with their everyday life and the struggles that they face. Suzanne has been away for the last two years and is coming back to Brighton to start her new life as an independent adult. Suzanne expects to slot back into Brighton, Rosie and Caddy's life like she never left. But everything is not as easy as Suzanne thinks and living alone is a lot harder than she ever thought it would be when you have to juggle working and paying for all your bills. Along the way Suzanne discovers new friendships, a new love interest, who she can and can not trust and most importantly she discovers herself and how strong she is.
A massive thank you to Hannah from Pan MacMillan for thinking of me for this amazing blog tour and allowing me to read Fierce Fragile Hearts and send through questions for Sara Barnard to answer. I hadn't read Beautiful Broken Things before being invited to be apart of this blog tour so of course I quickly went out and brought a copy and devoured it. So when I recieved my copy of Fierce Fragile Hearts I was so excited to quickly dive into it and see where Sara Barnard was going to take us with Suzanne in charge instead of Caddy.
Fierce Fragile Hearts has so much going for it and was so suprising with a lot of the things that happened throughout. I loved how strong Suzanne turned out to be and how no matter what really happened she always came back from it and worked her ass off to prove that she can do anything. I loved that by the end of the book she finally accepted help from her friends and learnt that she can reach out to them for any little thing and that by pulling away when she is having a downwards spiral she is not only hurting herself but also hurting her friends.
There were a few moments that really hit me and made me really feel for Suzanne like when her and Caddy are fighting. From my point of view I understood where Suzanne was coming from and why she did what she did but the way Caddy reacted was heartbreaking especially because in book 1 I loved and admired her so much. In Fierce Fragil Hearts I actually couldn't stand Caddy from when she started at uni. The way she treated Kel just broke my heart as I thought they were just made for each other and were so cute together. On the plus side it made me grow to love Rosie so much more and she was my new number one friend besides Matt of course.
Ah Matt where do I start with Matt. I adored Matt and his relationship with Suzanne but all I wanted in the end was them to be together, they were just so perfect. They both seemed to understand each other and when Matt turned around and used the 'L' word I fully expected her to turn around and say it back. They have both gone through their own private hells and I think that helped them create the bond that they did. No matter what I believe they will always be there for each other.
The last two things that I would like to talk about in this review are of course Suzanne's new friendship with her new neighbour Dilys and her dog Clarence sand what goes down with her brother Brian. First I will talk about the beautiful relationship that she developed with Dilys. Dilys quickly became one of my new favourite characters despite only making brief appearances throughout the book. It's a very positive relationship where a young adult has a relationship with an elderly person. Dilys had a lot of sass and you can tell she's had a bit of a hard life which I think is why Suzanne got along so well with her. Dilys' opened her eyes to the world and through that was able to decide what Suzanne wanted to do in life and helped provide financial support so she can reach her goal. Of course I was absolutely devastated when she died and felt Suzanne's grief.
Lastly I want to mention how much I disliked Brian in Fierce Fragile Hearts. I thought he was the doting older brother who had Suzanne's back no matter what but I was proved so wrong and it really surprised me. I can kind of understand where Brian came from in that they are his parents and he has had to deal with the fall out of everything that has happened and kind of felt like he was in between them all. But after Brian telling her parents what she mentioned in passing and then the things he ended up saying to Suzanne when she told him how she was feeling with it all I could totally understand why she decided to write off all of her family, except Sarah, in the end.
I really hope that we get to see more from this group of friends, especially Rosie's story and about their trip to Greece.
Rating: 4/5
I was lucky enough to be able to send through some questions to Sara Barnard thanks to the amazing team at Pan MacMillan. You can see my questions and Sara's answers below.
1. Congratulations on the release of Fierce Fragile Hearts. For those people who may not have heard of it how would you describe it to them?
Thank you! It’s about a girl with a lot of luggage trying to get it all up an escalator, but the escalator’s broken and she has to walk up, dragging it all behind her, and she keeps dropping bits and having to stop and cry, and she can see another escalator right next to hers and it’s working perfectly and the people on it are happily standing there having an easy ride, and she’s thinking, why can’t I just be on that escalator? But there’s no way to be on someone else’s escalator, so she just has to keep on trying.
That’s this book, except the luggage is c-PTSD and the escalator is life.
2. Fierce Fragile Hearts is a pretty powerful read. What inspired you to write it?
As it’s a companion novel to Beautiful Broken Things (though it can be read on its own), this answer is all about the characters. I wanted to tell Suzanne’s story because I don’t think it’s one that gets told very much: she’s a care leaver and having to live on her own to support herself as an eighteen year old, but she’s also this warm, vivacious hurricane that just loves people and music and dogs. So the answer to this is really that Suzanne inspired me to write it, even though she’s fictional and I literally made her up.
3. Your characters are always written as people we can really identify with. Who was your favourite character to write about and are any based on people you know?
Suzanne, but she’s not based on anyone I know. She’s been in my head for a long time, though, so she feels like someone I know.
4. You have written some amazing books for us all. Do you have any new ones in the works and can you give us a hint about them?
Thank you! I do, but I can’t even really give you a hint at the moment, because it’s very early days. If the thing I’m working on goes to plan, then all I can say is that it’s very sad, because I wrote it when I was very sad.
5. Finally who are your go to authors and go to books when you want to read a good book?
If I really want to read a good book, I’ll probably go for a re-read. One of the Cassonfamily books by Hilary McKay, or one of my two all-time favourites: Marlena, by Julie Buntin, or Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel.
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