Now this was a book I REALLY REALLY enjoyed! Totally unexpected from my first impressions reading the blurb. This book was a heartwarmingly, gripping journey of love, trials and family drama. There was a real level of depth to this book, which made the book so much more enjoyable making it an immersive read and developing a real level of sincerity within it. The surprises throughout the book kept coming and I loved that these weren't outrageous unbelievably but subtle twists which added to the book. I will definitely be recommending this book to others!

Wow, wow, wow. This book was an emotional rollercoaster, that I was utterly gripped by. An incredible read.

Willa’s sister (Laika) disappeared when she was 13 years old. Willa spends then next 25 years imagining she sees Laika everywhere she goes. Willa and her mother (Bianka) never give up hope of finding her. This is an excellent debut novel. Intricate and very clever. The story is character driven, fast paced and expertly written. The author does an amazing job of developing the characters over the years drawing the reader in and you can’t help being invested in the outcome. The story is told in 2 timelines with several POV characters.
Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley UK for the ARC.

Loved this book - told from different character POVs and times to build up a picture for the outcome, which is not a huge surprise in the end but well put together.

Things don’t break on their own was a different sort of read for me that did take me quite a while to get into, I’m glad I persevered as I felt it got much better half way through.
The book details a very dysfunctional family and the effects that had on both the daughters and their mum throughout their lives!
Domestic abuse/ coercion, missing child,confused sexuality and trauma are all present,as we follow the sisters as they grow into adulthood and try to come to terms and rise above their traumatic upbringing!
Told in past and present form which I did find a little confusing at times, but I enjoyed the dinner party scenes where previous experiences were discussed and the plot really started to make sense.
A read that is emotional at times but has a clear message of triumph over adversity
Thank you NetGalley for this early read

This was not the book I was expecting it to be at all. It was interesting and enjoyable but it is definitely not a thriller. I was very intrigued by the part about memories and I would have liked for it to have been explored further but the dinner party was just a starting point, not much happens there so I found the multiple points of view a bit repetitive.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin UK for an advanced copy in exchange for my review.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books for the ARC of this book.
Characters were described really well and you did almost feel part of the enticing storyline but I did find the ending somewhat disappointing and a bit flat.

Twenty five years ago Willa’s sister Laika disappeared without a trace. Seventeen year old Willa left without her to walk to school to start her first day in sixth form with thirteen year old Laika following not long afterwards. Despite an intensive police search and investigation, she was never found, although they took a strong interest in her father’s movements and vehicles.

With the intense media focus on her family and school, Willa transferred to a boarding school on the other side of the country. Her roommate Robyn became her only friend and they were lovers for a time. They spent one glorious summer break together at Robyn’s family home where her father, a potter, showed them how things that are broken can become beautiful in a new way when they are put back together. Willa would never stop looking for Laika, following every lead no matter how flimsy.

This is beautifully written first novel centring on the ripples that the disappearance of a child has on a family and those connected with them. It’s not a thriller, but a literary drama focusing on family, love, friendship, grief and loss with an unsolved mystery at the heart of it. Willa would never stop looking for Laika, following every lead no matter how flimsy. The novel rotates around a supper party hosted by Robyn and her wife Cat, to which Willa is invited along with her boorish fiancé Jamie, Robyn’s brother Michael, his girlfriend Liv, Cat’s brother Nate and his new French girlfriend Claudette.

Woven around the supper party, events from the past and the present are related that gradually fill in the truth about Willa’s dysfunctional family and what really happened to Laika. The truth is unexpected and heartbreakingly poignant. The characters are so well written we really feel that we know them and become invested in their fates. Fortunately, the author leaves them looking towards a brighter future as broken pieces are pieced back together in a new and stronger way. A compelling novel that I won’t forget quickly.

This was quite a heart wrenching story with so much going on. I cried and it made me think of many things.
I liked the mystery throughout and I wasn't sure how it was going to end.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would describe this book as a bit of a slow burner but once it gets going, it really sets alight. The story centres around siblings Willa and Laika who are each other's best friends. Of the two, Willa is the one who seems to be adored by her parents. The final straw is when the fathers bullying of Laika goes a step too far and she decides to run away. As the story progresses, we find out the dark family secret and just how much dad has covered up. Immense read.

I read this book in just over a day, it just flowed. There were POV from different characters and different timelines but it was never confusing and made perfect sense.
A brilliantly told story that I was surprised to discover was a debut book. This author is one to watch.

Willa’s sister disappears on the first day of term. She moves school to escape the press and media interest, meeting Robyn.
Willa sees Laika everywhere, she’s desperate to find her. Twenty years later she’s still looking for her, still following up reported sightings and still seeing her everywhere. Where did Laika go? Is she even still alive?
Reflecting both on the present and what happened twenty years ago.
Great read, engaging and surprising.

Things Don’t Break On Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins.

It seems to be a year of incredible debuts and this one is definitely going to stay with me. We open at a dinner party. Robyn and her wife Cat are hosting an evening for their friends Willa and Jamie, Robyn’s brother Michael and his partner Liv, and Cat’s brother Nat and his new girlfriend Claudette. It’s the first time the group will meet Claudette and Robyn hopes to make it a chilled, relaxed evening. Robyn and Michael grew up in a rambling and ramshackle farm house in the south west of the UK. Their father Chris was a potter and it was a bohemian, relaxed place to grow up. Robyn and a scholarship for a private girl’s school and she ‘buddies’ with Willa who was a new sixth former. They shared a study bedroom and Robyn soon learns that Willa’s life is overshadowed by the disappearance of her sister Laika. Her boyfriend Jamie is a wine merchant who lived in South Africa, whose gregarious nature can become overbearing. Michael’s girlfriend Liv is a psychologist and she begins a discussion about implicit and explicit memories. Our explicit memories include times, dates and places and they tend to be from older children. Implicit memories are usually from unconscious emotional recollections and can be an amalgamation of several memories, as well as a few bits of what others have told us. These are memories created when we’re very small, usually pre-school age. Jamie isn’t convinced and Liv’s assertions seem to unsettle the party. As Jamie gets louder, Willa tells a memory of being tickled until she wets herself. She has always hated being tickled. However, someone in the party knows this isn’t actually Willa’s memory. It’s her sister Laika’s.

One of Willa’s other memories is that her sister called their dad’s personal assistant his ‘sexetary’ but doesn’t know why. This shows us that we only ever know part of the picture. The author uses several narrators to show us that we can be present at the same event but see it totally differently. Laika had a memory of knocking over a tiered cake full of sugar flowers. In fact she’d stepped into the pantry to pick off the flowers and let them melt on her tongue. Then her dad and his secretary stepped into the cupboard and start to fool around. Laika is horrified and tries to get out, but then her dad notices her and is furious. He grabs her arm and yanks her out from under the shelf with so much force there’s an audible snap as he breaks her arm. Laika is screaming because her dad is naked from the waist down. When her mother appears she’s confused by his explanation that her arm just broke; ‘things don’t break on their own’. Willa is a witness to her father’s abuse of Laika and her mother, but she is his ‘PP’, short for prized possession. I hated this sense of ownership. Laika talks about feeling rage and there were places where I really felt it. On one occasion, when Laika has tried to trim her own fringe, her father pins her down and hacks her hair off with the scissors. The sense of powerlessness that comes across in this scene made me feel physically sick. At a family gathering Laika finds a baby bird and takes it to her parents for advice, but her aunt snatches it from her and throws it into the waiting jaws of her dogs. Willa submits and doesn’t provoke her father, but Laika won’t and this makes his treatment of her even worse. Willa doesn’t even realise they’ve spent their childhood utterly controlled, because she’s never been anywhere else. She thinks all families are the same until she stays with Robyn’s parents in the school holidays. Their easy way of being, the gentle nurturing and love, and the emphasis on people not things is a revelation to Willa. By contrast her home is a sterile mausoleum to her father’s achievements with shelves of prized Chinese ceramics without a speck of dust.

Another theme in the book is that of kintsugi, a Japanese practice of putting broken pottery back together with glue mixed with liquid gold. The broken pot becomes more beautiful because of it’s cracks. Robyn’s family is like this. They each show each other their broken parts and that familial love, acceptance and non-judgemental compassion fills their cracks and makes a person whole. By contrast, Willa’s father’s ceramics are distant and pristine, not to be handled. They have the same brittle beautiful exterior he expects from the women in his family, because they reflect on him. When we move into Laika’s narrative, we see another show of love and what it can do for someone who’s never had it. As she leaves home that morning she hides at a house she’s often seen in passing. It stands alone and is the home of an elderly lady who has many cats. She plans to sneak in and stay just one night to think about her next steps, but ends up staying for a while. The lady, Frieda, has nobody. There’s a carer who’s supposed to stay till lunchtime but only stays half an hour. Laika feeds Frieda properly and cares for her, she also listens. Frieda’s only living relatives are avaricious and come round to see if they can find the family jewellery. Frieda knows what it is to powerless at the hands of a tyrant. As a German Jew she had to escape to the UK during WW2, but her sister didn’t make it. She knows that people only leave their friends and family if they’re desperate.

At school Willa needed the closeness of another person and enjoyed the physical comfort of sleeping next to Robyn. This blossomed into a relationship. For Robyn this was first love and their break-up just before exams was hard for her. She didn’t get the grades she’d wanted for medicine so instead she studied radiography. As an adult, Robyn has found Cat, a woman she knows she can build a life with and maybe become parents. Willa comes back into her life fifteen years later and has made a website about her sister Laika where people can post any sightings and Willa can write to her. When someone claims to have seen her she comes to Robyn for support and they fly to Thailand at a moment’s notice, much to Cat’s surprise. Cat wants a commitment and not to be second best. So she makes a choice to keep Willa as a friend, but to put Cat and their family first. When the couple visit Willa’s home it’s like an out of body experience. Crammed into a tiny flat in London, the couple are overwhelmed by the scale of the house. The wealth on display is slightly shocking. But the women, including Willa’s mother, have a great time. They read by the pool, visit local landmarks and cruise around in the convertible with George Michael on full blast. When her dad appears unexpectedly, Cat and Robyn look on open mouthed as Willa and her mother run to get changed into flowery dresses and start to wait on his every whim. They have become Stepford wives. We realise that Willa has always conformed, whereas Laika disrupted the picture perfect family. After her visit to Robyn, Willa tries to push her father a little but it takes Frank Zappa at full volume to really get under his skin. It’s clear at the dinner party that Jamie is Willa repeating a pattern. He’s so like her father and the pair get on well, with Willa’s weekends filled with visits home so they can play golf together. In fact Jamie spends more time with her father than he does with Willa. They share so many attributes and behaviours: the drinking and womanising, long trips abroad, strident right wing views, lack of empathy and he breaks things. In fact it’s his assertion ‘it just broke’ that wakes Willa up and makes her realise.

The psychological dynamics of the dinner party are explained by the narratives from Robyn, Willa and Laika. We each carry hidden histories within us, some aspects of which are subconscious. There are parts of that history that give us strength and resilience, others that give us an outlook of loving life, and others that help us fulfil our potential. Other parts of our history can unravel us. In counselling there’s a brick wall analogy. Something happens to us that we don’t process or resolve, so it sits there like a faulty brick. We continue to build our wall, but because of that dodgy brick the wall isn’t stable, it wobbles and might even collapse. In order to build a strong wall, we must use the counselling process to slowly take away each brick until we reach the one that’s faulty. Then we remove it and replace it with a much healthier brick that comes from talking and rebuilding, helping the wall stand the test of time. I loved the analogy of the natural pool where Robin’s parents take everyone to bathe. It’s a direct contrast to the sterile and man made pool at Willa’s home. As the truth of what happened to Laika is revealed I loved that their mother filled the pool in. Their mother fills it by breaking every piece of china her husband owns into it, then filling it with soil and building a beautiful rose garden. Although, I did wonder if china is the only thing in there, especially when she says she will never leave. By contrast the natural pool at Robyn’s family home is filled with this self-made family that includes their friends too. Robyn and Michael’s family have so much love that it can easily take in others, old friends and new generations. Their love is like the natural spring that feeds the pool, constantly flowing and endlessly replaced.

‘I think about my duties and obligations […] as a decent human being. The things I have always known and understood , the things I’m prepared to stand up for, put my name to, hold myself accountable for. I think about my beautiful parents and how their love has helped me grow into the person I am.’

This is the full review that will appear on my blog next week.

3.5 stars.

My favourite thing about genres like this is when very small, seemingly insignificant details are plopped into the story, hastily ignored and then end up being huge whammies in the story later. Collins does this perfectly! She even had me doubting myself, as if I’d just imagined certain parts!

It took me a while to get into this book, but the split narrative really helped to develop the characters and increase their likeability as they all become slightly more relatable. Sadly, I disliked the ending too much to give this more stars. It felt too rushed and too left-field for the aim of a plot twist…

I enjoyed that the main female characters all had lovable traits and realistic flaws that made them very raw and real. Willa was a joy to read.

Thanks to NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Things Don’t Break on Their Own is a novel based an a dual timeline of two school friends: one at a dinner party in the present day, and the other at their initial meeting at boarding school as teenagers. The main plot line involves the disappearance of one of the girl’s sisters, so there’s a crime/whodunnit element to the story. There are a lot of references to domestic abuse and traumatic childhood events, which are very well described in my opinion, and therefore will be upsetting to read for some. I’ve given it two stars because whilst I enjoyed the queer love stories and elements of mystery, I did find it quite a slog personally to get through the more traumatic bits.

With thanks to Penguin and NetGalley and for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't 100% sold on the premise of this book but I am happy to admit that I was wrong - I couldn't put it down and read it in under two days as I needed to know what happened to Laika.

It is worth noting that some parts are uncomfortable as the book does deal with emotional, physical and mental abuse, including of a child. However, this is handled well and is needed within the story to provide context and character motivation.

This is a heartwrenching story of loss, life continuing after it and always searching. It details grief, abuse, repeating patterns and trying to put fragments of your life back together after moments that break it apart. I truly felt what each character was going through with the multiple POVs and timeframes building a greater picture even while fragmenting the story into smaller pieces.

At one point the book talks about Kinjutsu pottery - the Japanese art of putting something broken back together again and highlighting the breaks - and it feels like this is exactly what this book did. It was written in such a way that all of the breaks were obvious but they ultimately created a completed story that dealt with healing.

I'm genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed this book and how much I took from it.

Things Don't Break On Their Own is a stunning debut - Sarah Easter Collins is an assured writer to watch out for. It is a beautiful, character led story of a life formed by an absence. Robyn's sister Laika has been missing since her childhood and her fate is slowly revealed through a well crafted plot which is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Definitely more of a literary novel than a thriller and all the better for it.
Thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for an advance copy to review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.

This starts as a dinner party. Cat and Robyn host with guests. Willa was at school with Robyn. Michael and Nate are Cat’s brothers. Partners come to, including the mysterious Claudette.

This is only a small part of the story as most of it takes place in the past, where we see how their lives are intertwined and who is who.

This in a was slow paced and I had to stop and start it a couple of times. I saw the main twist coming but I think that was the point of the author and that it was more about the why.

Once I settled to read this thought, I did enjoy it. A nice gentle tale. It was hard to keep track of everyone as many characters were bit players

I really enjoyed this book. 25 years ago Laika vanished without trace on her way to school. Her sister, Willa, has never given up hope and sees her everywhere she goes. It soon becomes clear as the story progresses that the family lived in fear of the father and that he and Laika clashed. Then one day Willa is invited to a dinner party and is convinced one of the other guests is her sister. But is this just another false alarm? I really liked the characters in this book and I couldn't wait for the denouement!
Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
Copied to Goodreads.

This book was so beautifully written! It’s traumatic, heart-wrenching and gripping all at the same time. Love stories, tragedy, family dynamics and wonder all combine together to make this a truly compelling read! I loved the different stories and how well interconnected they were. And it wasn’t left hanging at the end, it was left with no questions! Highly recommended read, I couldn’t put it down