The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

by Katarina Bivald
Scott County Library audiobook 10CDs
read by Fiona Hardingham and Lorelei King
genre: realistic fiction

There were things I really enjoyed about this book and others I disliked a lot. Overall, I'm glad I "read" it.

Some quick observations:

• Sara (pronounced "Saara") was such a wussy! Get a spine, girl!
• horrible accents for Iowa . . . they sounded western / Southern . . . just wrong for the Midwest
• interesting characters 
• interviewing people together . . . typically police and others interview one person at a time to see if they can catch inconsistencies. I get why this worked in a literary sense, but it didn't seem realistic at all.

The biggest negative for me in this book had to do with Amy (via letters) and Sara and others having such a negative and misguided perception of who God is. Their attitude about religion, the Bible, and God was as though any person should obviously believe it's all worthless. It made me sad. Even Caroline, who cared about being a Christian, was stereotypically written and changed into what the author portrayed as enlightened at the end. It made me sad.

I loved the literary allusions and the entire genesis of the book store. I cared most about some of the minor characters and definitely felt as though this could be a real place.