Sarah Easter Collins kept me reading THINGS DON’T BREAK ON THEIR OWN long past bedtime! This one had me hooked from start to finish!

When Willa accepts an invitation to a dinner party from her first love, she expects to white knuckle her way through the evening. Robyn started out as her ‘assigned buddy’ in a new school but became so much more. Willa was struggling with the disappearance of her sister, Laika when they met. The two girls became inseparable and Robyn was even able to come spend summers at Willa’s family home, though Willa wished she could spend more time at Robyn’s as that was what she always thought a ‘real’ family could be. While Willa always wondered if her father had something to do with Laika’s disappearance, as she was beginning to argue and fight back against his aggressive, bullying behaviour, her mother always suspected a local builder who was reportedly the last to see Laika.

Anyway, I digress. Twenty five years after Laika goes missing, Willa looks at the dinner party as a chance to see Robyn’s brother Michael again and show Cat, Robyn’s partner that there is no longer anything between them other than friendship. Also at the party is Nate and his date, Claudette and Jamie, Willa’s date, a male chauvinist whose behaviour is nothing short of embarrassing.

As the dinner progresses, we get the backstory of the relationships between the women and the details surrounding the disappearance. We see familial bonds, learn about memories and the bonds of female friendship. What happened during those 25 intervening years is what legends are made of!

This one had me hooked from the very beginning. I could feel the tension mounting as the dinner progressed. I truly felt engaged with the characters and wondered how their lives progressed beyond dessert. The writing was clear and concise and led to a very enjoyable, long read as I couldn’t put it down. This is my first Sarah Easter Collins novel, I believe, but if she writes like this, it will certainly not be my last.

Thank you too NetGalley and Crown Publishing for this ARC opportunity. All opinions are my own and given voluntarily.

2.5 stars - it was mid.

this is pretty heavy on domestic abuse and child abuse. so be aware going in.
in my opinion this leans more literary fiction & mystery. Told in multiple POV & dual timelines, and the story moved really slowly. I'm all for a slow burn but this kind of felt like it was a 400 page book when in reality its only 272 pages LOL.

The "big twist" at the end was pretty anticlimactic, since you kind of saw it coming.
Without giving away spoilers, there were some parts I liked and some I did not. I can't say I hate this book but it'll probably never think about it again post writing this review either.

Thank you to Crown publishing & Netgalley for providing a digital copy. As always, opinions are my own.

thank you crown publishing for an unexpected top 10 contender for 2024! I loved Things Don't Break on Their Own, Sarah Easter Collins' style really grabbed me and brought me into a wild set of feelings and emotions, of unexpectedly strong suspense and mystery, and into the inner chaos of people's lives and secrets spiraling, collapsing, and intersecting. There is a quietly powerful subtlety in how the characters' share the same moments but tell them from their own separate perspectives (well done), a sense of relationships not yet finished, and also a sense of underlying dread, of holding on to things that are slipping away or perhaps coming to surface.

If you have watched the family holiday episode of The Bear (second season, TV perfection), I felt a little like that in some parts as I got into the book but with a little less overt chaos, a sneakier unfolding of dysfunction, and a little more exploration of characters' thoughts in ways you can't experience on TV.

I don't want to say much about this one, it was just a perfect read after a lot of increasingly predictable, or bland, romcoms and thrillers, this read is a reward for the how the story about grief and family and secrets, and how people hurt and are hurt, comes together.
Consider me a big fan of this author and excited for a next read.

Robyn and Cat are hosting their sibling dinner party. In attendance is Robyn’s brother Michael and his new girlfriend Liv, a psychiatrist specialized in false memories. Cat’s brother Nate brings his new French girlfriend Claudette. Willa, Robyn’s high school friend, with her fiancé Jamie, is also present. As the night progresses, it’s obvious that Willa is still mourning her missing sister, who disappeared over two decades ago. As the guests become engrossed with Liv’s specialization, the night might just answer some secrets that have been in hiding for years.

Alternating between the present dinner party, and when they were teens; our narrators start from Robyn’s perspective, then to Willa’s, and finally we get a glimpse into the events that lead to Willa’s sister, Laika’s disappearance. The way the narrations are separated made the story feel almost as if they were three different stories, instead of a single interwoven story. We also get quite a bit of background from all three’s perspective and while I normally love getting ALL THE INFO on our main characters, there were parts that seemed more drawn out than necessary. In the end, the different POVs made the story feel slow and certain events repetitive.

This was not what I expected to read based on the synopsis and think it should be marketed as more a literary mystery more than a thriller. While I was hoping to get a page turning thriller, this was more of a slow, character driven, emotional family drama. I think I would have enjoyed this story more if I had gone in with a different expectation, but ultimately this didn’t cut it for me. If you want a slow burn literary mystery, then this might be perfect for you.

TW: Abuse, while not graphic is certainly a prime topic of the story.

Things Don’t Break on Their Own is out now. Thank you to Crown Publishing for my advanced copy in exchange for my review. If you liked this review, please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my
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Thank you @PRHAudio for gifting me this audiobook and @Crown for providing the ebook. All thoughts are my own.

Things Don’t Break On Their Own is a well-written and thought-provoking novel with a mystery central to its core. The disappearance of Willa’s younger sister, 13-year-old Laika, has haunted her for the last two and a half decades. The story begins at what appears to be a normal dinner party, but the truth will finally be exposed.

The story is told in multiple perspectives, that of Willa and of Robin, women now both in their late 30s in London. In boarding school, Robin was Willa’s first love and their relationship ended abruptly surrounding the disappearance of Laika. Both have seemingly moved on and recently become friends again. They once played a profound role in each other’s lives. I would say it is more character-driven literary fiction than mystery, though the reverberations of Laika’s disappearance reverberates throughout the story.

Willa’s family has immense wealth, and this has often been used to hide the abuse of the girls’ domineering father. The juxtaposition between the childhood families of Willa and Robin are clear. Though Robin’s family is untraditional, they are loving and functional. Willa’s family is the opposite, rigid and dysfunctional. Wealth plays an outsized role in their family dynamics and complicity of others.

The novel is a little slow-going at first but becomes so riveting. The pieces start being put together. Finally, after twenty-five years, there are answers. Though the loose ties are solved, this novel asks so many ethical questions. How do you stand up for your loved ones if you’re a victim yourself? How much blame can we put on those who don’t or can’t protect us? What responsibility do we each have to our family members and keeping them whole?

A slow starter for sure - almost went to the DNR pile - but something told me to finish it.

Not an easy read - but makes you think and feel so not so pleasant feels. A missing sister - abusive situations and a search that leads to a wonderful conclusion.

Definitely one to read - even if it's a bit hard.

20 years ago Willa left for school thinking her sister, Laika, would be following right behind. Laika doesn’t make it to school and seems to have vanished into thin air. This book goes back and forth between the current day and 20 years ago. Some scenes are told a couple times from different perspectives which makes it interesting. I wouldn’t call this book a thriller really, but definitely a mystery with a story that slowly unravels the truth of what happened to the missing girl. I thought it was a great story and did not expect the twists in this book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader’s copy.

Thank you, NetGalley and Crown Publishing | Crown books for this advanced reader's copy. I really enjoyed this thriller about a young girl whose sister goes missing and how it affects her entire family. Willa is the perfect daughter. Laika is the rebellious one. Laika goes missing one day on her way to school and Willa is never the same. Willa has continued to search for her sister for 20 years, convinced that she is still alive. When Willa is invited to dinner party by her first love, she finally finds out what happened to her sister all those years ago. This was an extremely messy family drama/thriller, where at times, you don't really know who to trust or believe.

Wow, this one was SO great and so well-written! I love a good mystery and I love it even more when it is solved in the end. Although it’s classified as a mystery, it is so much more than that and I couldn’t put it down.

A heartbreaking story of 2 sisters growing up with an abusive father and the aftermath when one goes missing. Told from different perspectives of the main characters and the people whose lives they touch

Willa's sister goes missing as a teen. It is something that has haunted her for 20 years. This literary thriller was well-written and had me intrigued until the end.

**Features:**
- A dinner party conversation that slowly unravels the mystery of a girl who disappeared 25 years prior
- An exploration of abuse and its ripple effects
- Examines friendships, queer relationships/identity, and dealing with grief and guilt
- Told from multiple perspectives and bounces from past memories to the present day

Willa has lived with grief and guilt over the loss of her sister since she disappeared 25 years ago. However, Willa has never truly given up trying to find her. As a casual dinner party with friends makes them all reflect on the past, it becomes clear that someone has information they haven’t shared that could unravel the mystery that has haunted Willa for most of her life. This story takes a little bit to get going, but I was hooked once it did! It is told from three different perspectives and delving into each character’s memories is an intriguing way to discover how everyone at the table was connected and how each of these connections are perceived from different points of view. However, the dinner scenes themselves are a little stilted and boring compared to the memory sections. Because these scenes are repeated in more or less the same fashion for each perspective, it makes the pace drag a little in these sections. This is a great book that I would recommend to anyone who likes interesting characters and a little mystery, but I think people looking for a true thriller will probably be a little disappointed.

**Clever use of perspective**

In order to discover what happened to Willa’s sister, Laika, and understand exactly what is happening at the dinner party, we must travel through the memories of three characters; Willa, her friend Robyn, and newcomer Claudette. We explore their memories from right after Laika’s disappearance up until the dinner party itself, learning about the roles the other characters play as we go. The more we learn about the past, the more we understand about the dinner party and Laika’s disappearance.

When I first got into this book, I thought that each set of memories was going to be repeated, just from a different point of view. Where there is some overlap, this is not really what happens at all. Instead, we get a different set of memories that are happening around the same time as each other which gives us a much broader picture of each individual’s experience. This also cleverly allows space for each character to develop their unique voice and relationships outside the view of the others. It is up to us as readers to ‘put all the pieces together’ and I found this experience very gratifying. Everything does eventually come together in a satisfying way, though I wouldn’t say there is anything extremely surprising if you are paying attention.

**Oh look, a literary road sign**

When I use the term “literary road sign”, I mean those moments, symbols, dialogue, etc. that an author uses in order to guide the reader’s thinking so they are better able to pick up on a theme or otherwise follow certain story elements the way the author intends. Some authors hide their signs extremely well or incorporate them so seamlessly that we just give them a wink and move on. Others…not so much. This book falls weirdly in between.

This book uses multiple literary road signs that are really obvious. They don’t quite feel unnatural, but they elicit a slight cringe rather than a wink. Despite that, I think that these road signs are actually very helpful and they allowed me to appreciate what the author was trying to convey. For example, the book tells you at the very beginning why it is going to repeat the dinner scenes multiple times and why they won’t be that different from each other in each repetition. Though I personally found those scenes tedious, understanding their purpose helped me focus on the details I was meant to be focusing on and made each repetition feel a little more significant than the last.

Special thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Great debut novel with a compelling narrative and well defined characters. A bit of a sapphic coming of age story woven with a missing sister and family trama that is slowly revealed. This is a great page turner. Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for this advanced reading copy.

Thank you to Net Galley and Crown Publishing for the chance to read and review this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
I really enjoyed this book. Once I got into it, I couldn't stop reading. It is the story of a very dysfunctional family. Willa is the older sister-the "Golden Girl." Laika is a few years younger and does not really fit into the family. One day Laika leaves for school, and she disappears. Willa really misses her sister, and she spends 25 years looking for her. I liked the ending, but I am not going to describe it (no spoilers.) I like the way the author gradually brought the parts of the story together. There is so much more going on than just a child disappearing. I found the characters to be believable, even though I did not like all of them. I hope the author continues to write more stories. Highly recommend!

This book started out.a little slow, to the point where I almost stopped reading it. By the end, however, I could not put this book down and I read the second half in one day. This story follows a sister mourning the disappearance of her younger sister. It is told from three perspectives and is not chronological. I recommend this book to fans of mystery and/or thrillers, particularly fans of Lucy Foley's The Paris Apartment.

Wow! This exceptionally well-written novel of family drama and friendship took me by surprise.

Willa walked to school alone one morning, thinking her younger sister would follow. She didn't. Twenty-five years later, Willa's life is still defined by her sister's disappearance. Most have accepted that her sister is dead, but Willa is sure that she's alive and continues to search for her until one dinner party changes things forever.

Although labeled as such by the publisher, I found this novel to be much deeper than a thriller. It explores what it means to be family and what we often have to do to survive the family we're born into. While every element of the book is excellent, it is the author's portrayal of friendship between women that is most effective. This is the element that has stayed with me days after finishing.. Sarah Easter Collins holds the magical ability to portray the bond of friendship; the absolute love and devotion that two women can share for decades in a way that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a best friend.

Plot twists (folds?) and depth of characters make this a beautiful debut novel by Sarah Easter Collins--I hope to see more from her in the future! The storyline is compelling and perfectly paced--especially as readers gain insight into the facets of each character's lives, motivations, choices, and POVs through time. While not what I would classify as a true suspense or thriller as some other reviewers have, my brain was constantly trying to make the connections between the threads almost as if I was reading a title from one of those genres. Queer friendly, warmth mixed into the shadows of family...I just really, really enjoyed this one in a way I haven't of a contemporary lit title in a few years. Solid recommend!

A stunning debut.

This is not really a mystery novel, though there is a mystery; it‘s also not really a novel of suspense, though there is plenty of suspense throughout. Instead, „Things Don‘t Break On Their Own“ is a stunning exploration of love, loss, and grief; the impact of trauma; the meaning of family; and the way we mend ourselves after breaking.

The novel starts out at a dinner party hosted by Robyn and her wife Cat. They invited their brothers and their respective partners - Robyn‘s brother Michael with his psychologist girlfriend Liv, and Cat‘s musician brother Nate with his French girlfriend Claudette - as well as Robyn‘s longtime friend (and first love) Willa, who brings along her fiancé. As the guests slowly arrive and gather, we find out that Willa and Robyn met as teens just after Willa‘s younger, thirteen-year old sister Laika disappeared without a trace, never to be found.

The novel then weaves seamlessly between the dinner party and Willa and Robyn‘s past, in particular, Laika‘s disappearance and its effects on her family, and it does so so flawlessly and beautifully, it‘s hard to believe this is a debut novel. I found it to be superb, both heart-wrenching, and brilliantly written, with a stunning ending. What an achievement.

TW for domestic abuse, child abuse.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

„Things Don‘t Break On Their Own“ is slated to be released on July 16, 2024.

Things Don't Break on Their Own is a harrowing exploration of grief, trauma and sexuality, told in multiple timelines through multiple perspectives, that closely examines the way we break and how we put ourselves back together.

Twenty-five years ago, Willa's thirteen year old sister Laika went missing without a trace. Her life is profoundly affected by the loss, and she's still convinced she catches glimpses of Laika in passerby. Everyone else is sure she's dead, but Willa hasn't ever given up hope.

Will attends a dinner party thrown by her first love, who's now her close friend, and expects a simple evening. But someone at the party has answers to the questions that have plagued her her whole life.

This story emotionally affected me on many levels. While there is a plot line running at present at the dinner party, we learn almost three decades of back story behind Willa and her friend Robyn, who she met at boarding school right after her sister Laika's disappearance. Sarah Easter Collins masterfully weaves in and out of time to share the most important details of Robyn and Willa's lives leading up to their dinner party. As we switch perspectives, small details differ for certain scenes, and we get a deeper look at the characters' biases as their own sometimes unreliable narrators.

The conclusion is a poignant reminder of the ways we can pull ourselves together after falling apart, perfectly encapsulating the themes of the entire book.

Fans of Rabbit Hole and mysterious family dramas will love this one!

An interesting story about two sisters and a very evil father. Well written. Patrons wil enjoy it. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.