Hearts Unbroken

Conceptually, Hearts Unbroken had a good plot and setting to discuss micro-agressions, racism and bigotry faced by minorities in a predominantly white community. Louise’s family had moved to the neighborhood a while back, and in her senior year, she has joined the Journalism club at school and her little brother has been picked to play a major role in the school play. The community’s opposition to the casting including children of color in main and major roles starts a wave of discussion regarding the way minorities are treated in the town. And on a personal level, Louise’s dating life is being very cautious of the boys she dates after the last one made insulting comments about Native Americans. The thing that this book fails at, however, is the writing itself. Right from the start, I was troubled by the style – in which scenes are anecdotal in form, and and end abruptly in the middle of conversations, then skip ahead to another scene without any proper flow in between. Also, every time a new character is introduced, Louise goes on a tangent telling us about their personality, what they do, who they are, etc, which is distracting and to be honest, reads like this is more of an essay than a story. At times, even the surrounding descriptions happen right in the middle of dialogue, and since this is Louise in first person, it makes you wonder why she is ruminating about the surroundings in the middle of a serious conversation, when that could have been described BEFORE it. The way it was all written just made this a frustrating experience in reading. On the topics, though, it hits relevant notes. It talks about micro-aggressions as well as outright bigotry. It shows how the oppressors make others too bend to their pressure – as was in the example of the PART threatening non-compliant people by hurting their businesses. The adults in the book also participate in the conversation, as in the case of the teachers who call out white extremists, and the culture of rejecting any change in the status quo, including how the language is coded to hide outright racism. The addition of the occasional articles from the school newspaper, The Hive, was a smart decision because it, at times, progressed the plot better than any prose could have. I liked that it challenged even Louise’s inexperience and occasional self-centeredness, but the thing with her boyfriend was more of a ‘misunderstanding as a plot device’ than an actual attempt to balance her personality construct. Also, because the writing is at fault, all the above discussion comes across more like a sermon, and a checklist of racial things to tackle, rather than a proper nuanced discussion of racial insensitivity in daily life. Bottomline – good concept and relevant discussion, but the writing fails it badly.