What's Broken Between Us - Alexis Bass (Book Review)

I have decided to switch up the format of my reviews slightly.  I am going to be using the synopsis from the books to begin my reviews:
Synopsis from book:
Alexis Bass’s heartbreakingly beautiful second novel is a tale of love, loss, and learning to forgive, perfect for fans of Gayle Forman and of Robyn Schneider's The Beginning of Everything.

A year and a half ago, Amanda Tart's brother got behind the wheel drunk and killed his best friend. Today, he's coming home from prison.

Amanda's been the one living with the fallout, made worse by her brother's recent unapologetic TV interview. People think he's a monster. Still, she loves him. It's her dark secret, until she starts getting close to Henry again--whose sister is paralyzed from the accident.

A year and a half ago, her brother destroyed his life. Now Amanda has to decide if she'll let his choice destroy hers.

My review:
I liked the synopsis for this book so I decided to give it a whirl.  The book starts off with Amanda's brother about to come home from prison after serving his short sentence.  Amanda is still struggling with what happened and being able to continue on with her life.  She is trying to figure out how to act and what people actually expect her to be like.  

The character development for the story is very good, you get to see what Amanda is struggling with internally and also how she perceives her family and friends.  I think the characters make you want to read more of the story and see what happens.  Amanda sees her parents as not really wanting to help that they are taking a more hands off approach and being able to figure it out on your own.  For Amanda this seems to be working, but when Jonathan comes home he needs more guidance that his parents are not giving him.  Amanda can see that he needs the structure, but is not able to help him since she really is only a child herself. 

I enjoyed the author showing the parenting style of Amanda and Jonathan's parents because it really showed the lack of guidance that she was receiving.  I feel like that setup how Amanda showed her feelings in the book.  Since she didn't have her parents to talk to or open up to she didn't know who she could really talk to and shut down expressing emotions.  Amanda was needing someone to talk to and actually open up. 

The book touches mostly on Amanda and her perceptions of everyone.  You can see as a reader how Amanda grows throughout the story.  I would have loved this book to be set as two perspectives so I could get more of a look into what Henry or Jonathon were thinking.  Henry, I would want to know what was going on with his sister and what the extent of her injuries really where.  Jonathon, I wanted to know more about what he was thinking all the time.  What his thoughts where on prison, why he didn't care if he went back, how he became him.

This is a quick read book that is easy to read at night when you have some free time.  I feel like the book lacked the second perspectives so I was left with a lot of well what could he have been thinking?  

Quotes:
"Some wounds don't heal; they aren't suppose to." 

"An even bigger miracle is the ways we find to cope with our own brutal mistakes and accept them, especially when there's no solution. Maybe, when there's no repainting what we've wrecked and we have to navigate around the shape, broken parts of our own destruction, that's when we need one another the most."

My Rating 3/5
Author website http://alexisbassbooks.com/
HarperCollins
ISBN  9780062275356
Length 298
Format Hardcover