The Break

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I cried a lot throughout this book even thought I can't fully relate to the trauma. The writing is very well done talking and making an open dialogue regarding miscarriages and postpartum depression and app the traumatic experiences that come along with it.

The Break by Katherena Vermette | Goodreads The Break by Katherena Vermette | Goodreads

This was another sisters read and our varying viewpoints provided for an interesting and diverse discussion. Katherena Vermette is a Métis writer from Treaty One territory, the heart of the Métis nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first book, North End Love Songs (The Muses Company) won the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry. Her National Film Board short documentary, this river, won the Coup de Coeur at the Montreal First Peoples Festival and a Canadian Screen Award. She seems surprised. ‘If your husband is “on a break” from your marriage’ – she does the quotation marks with her fingers – ‘then aren’t you’ – more quotation marks – ‘“on a break” too?’Rowan’s growing instability leads her to accuse June of unspeakable things. And when June disappears just days later, Rowan becomes a suspect. The neighbors heard the screaming. But only Rowan knows what really happened. If her mind can be trusted. Since Lila’s birth, her memory has been both unreliable and frightening. Singh contemplates how she and her daughter can live ethically in our current social and political systems, and how they can change them. Taking up race, physical vulnerability, queer parenting, and more, The Breaks is a wide-ranging, invigorating mix of memoir and cultural critique.” —Book Riot

The Break - Quill and Quire The Break - Quill and Quire

I nod. Hugh’s dad died eight months ago, and Hugh had shut down. ‘I thought that if enough time passed he’d be okay.’ Although this is fictitious, I was drawn into the drama and it felt "raw and real." I felt scared and helpless with Stella, and could emphasize with sisters Paulina and Louisa and their mother, Cheryl. I admired the young Metis policeman and could feel his frustration with his older partner. But rookie Officer Tommy Scott, himself Metis, persists when his older (white) partner is ready to close the case, and the appearance of a horrifically injured teenaged girl in the Emergency Department of the local hospital validates his instincts. As the girl’s family gather around to provide support, the reader learns not just her story, but those of her extended family and close friends.The Break is a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside the home of Stella a young Métis mother. One evening Stella looks out of her window and spots someone in trouble on the Break ― she calls the police to alert them to a possible crime. This book has been in me for a really long time. It started when I was living in a house similar to Stella's [the witness to the crime], next to a place very similar to the Break [the field where the crime takes place]. Same neighbourhood. It really started with that scene, with Stella. I'm reluctant to call it a dream — it was one of those writerly visions, from wherever it comes from. It was very scary. I saw what Stella sees, only I saw it with the perpetrator and the victim, and I saw their whole lives, and it really haunted me for a long time. I'm reluctant to call it a nightmare, because I think there is hope in this story, but it was very hard for me. I wanted to write it and explain it. I started with the questions of, how does someone do that? What drives them to such heinous violence? And how does someone survive it? Rowan has just given birth to Lila. She and her husband have hired June to babysit part time. Rowan is having a difficult time since the birth. She feels unsettled, and it’s getting worse. She believes June has done some horrible things, and when June turns up missing, Rowan is now the key suspect. Only she knows what really happened, or does she? Rowan O’Sullivan and her husband Gabe just had their first baby girl Lia, and their baby is absolutely perfect. Plus, they have June, hired to help take care of the baby. It takes a few moments for her words to sink in. Then, to my great surprise, something stirs in me, something hopeful that, after the last five horrible days, feels like the sweetest relief. In a small recess of my soul a tiny pilot light sparks into life.

The Break by Katie Sise | Goodreads

There are compelling characters - Phoenix & Tommy especially - complex, rich, heartbreaking - but many of the others including Stella, Lou, Paul & Cheryl, were significantly less well-developed and in the end, all sounded very similar and stereotypical so that I was unable to form any attachment or even really care about them. And I just didn't think she needed the POV from a dead woman - although these were some of the most beautifully written passages, they distracted me and constantly pulled me out of the story. While the violent characters in the novel are despicable, it is a testament to Vermette’s skill that they also appear pitiable. The Break is a condemnation of reprehensible individual behaviour, but also of a broader society incapable of dealing effectively with problems of addiction, poverty, homelessness, and despair. Vermette isn’t laying blame: she simply details the tragedy of cultural loss, prejudice, family breakdown, and violence for her readers to assess. Vermette is skilled at writing with a language that is conversational and comfortable and with a poetic ease that makes the hard things easier to swallow. The result is a book that is at times emotionally demanding, funny, suspenseful, and always engaging." - Winnipeg Review When I first saw The Break at the bookstore it caught my interest but I decided against it as it had a trigger warning for violence. I can be sensitive to violence however knowing in advance it does take some of the sensitivity away. I saw it again at the library and knew then that I was going to have to read it. It was definitely a good read for me. I felt that Katherena Vermette handled the violence well and is so well written that I didn't feel sensitive towards it at all.

TOO MANY CHARACTERS - I'm a big fan of the multi-character perspective and I understand that writing from the POV of 10 characters is a tremendous challenge and sadly, one I feel that Vermette fell slightly short of. (Though it would be remiss of me not to mention I highly admire Vermette for the incredible amount of respect and empathy she has for all her characters.) The Break is an emotional, powerful and intense literary thriller about the strength and love that connects a family of women and friends together, while dealing with a violent act. The Break refers to a field between two rolls of houses but also refers to broken relationships.