Break to You

by Neal Shusterman, Debra Young, Michelle Knowlden

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Love can grow anywhere, even in a juvenile detention center. Break to You is an epic love story, totally perfect for fans of John Green and Ned Vizzini.

Bestselling author of Scythe and Challenger Deep Neal Shusterman, here with coauthors Debra Young and Michelle Knowlden, tells an intense yet tender story of two teens, trapped in impossible circumstances and unjust systems, willing to risk everything for love—no matter the consequences.

Adriana knows that if she can manage to keep her head down for the next seven months, she might be able to get through her sentence in the Compass juvenile detention center. Thankfully, she’s allowed to keep her journal, where she writes down her most private thoughts when her feelings get too big.

Until the day she opens her journal and discovers that her thoughts are no longer so private. Someone has read her writings—and has written back. A boy who lives on the other side of the gender-divided detention center. A boy who sparks a fire in her to write back.

Jon’s story is different than Adriana’s; he’s already been at Compass for years and will be in the system for years to come. Still, when he reads the words Adriana writes to him, it makes him feel like the walls that hold them in have melted away.

This fast-paced, highly compelling tour de force novel exposes what life is like in detention—and reveals the hearts of two teens who are forced to live in desperate circumstances. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798874625382
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	07/02/2024
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.00(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Once a space shuttle engineer and extreme hiker, Michelle Knowlden now writes full-time. The Shamus Award nominee’s stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Amazing Stories, Daily Science Fiction, and Neal Shusterman’s UnBound and Gleanings anthologies. Her books include the Abishag Mysteries quartet, the Deluded Detective series, the Faith Interrupted Cozy Mysteries, Her Last Mission, and the 1930s novella The Admiral of Signal Hill. Under the name Michelle Dutton, she wrote the fantasy series Ravenscar Shifters and the historical romance Lillian in the Doorway. She splits her time between riverboats and the Arizona highlands with family, friends, and an Icelandic sponge named Marino.  

 

Neal Shusterman is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author. He is the author of Challenger Deep, a National Book Award winner, Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honor Book, and recipient of six starred reviews; Bruiser, which was a Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) Choice, a YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults pick, and on twelve state lists; and the Unwind dystology (includiung Thunder Head and Scythe), among many other books. He lives in California with his family.

Debra Young writes fantasy, science fiction, and horror. She has published stories in The Horror Zine, Dark Fire Fiction, Swords and Sorcery magazine, and Black Fox Literary Magazine and is the author of Grave Shadows, a story anthology. She resides in Andalusia, Alabama.

Jean Carper is a nationally syndicated columnist and a leading authority on health and nutrition. Her columns appear in USA Weekend and King Features Syndicate.

She has authored numerous books, including the bestselling Food—Your Miracle Medicine and The Food Pharmacy.

Formerly an award-winning medical correspondent for CNN, Jean Carper lives in Washington, D.C., and Florida.

 

Check out www.usaweekend.com

Editorial Reviews

04/01/2024

Two incarcerated teens fall in love at a gender-segregated juvenile detention center in this uniquely rendered romance by Knowlden, Shusterman, and Young. High school junior Adriana Zaharn writes rhythmic poems in her journal while serving time at Compass, where “days pass in a numbing rain of emotional sleet.” When she misplaces the notebook, 17-year-old Artorias Jonathan “Jon” Kilgore cleverly smuggles it back to her via the Compass library. Adriana’s relief sours upon discovering that Jon has added brazen responses to several entries, yet the journal becomes a lifeline for both as friendly banter evolves into flirtatious revelry between poems and letters, compelling the pair to do the impossible: meet. The intersectionally diverse teen characters that populate this smoothly plotted, emotionally intense read are fully developed and represent a range of incarceration experiences; mostly one-dimensional adults spotlight warped ideas of justice that permeate a corrupt judicial system. Close third-person narration melds letters and slam poetry–inspired verse to deliver a high-stakes, dual-perspective love story that critiques juvenile incarceration and celebrates the connective power of the written word. Jon is Black; Adriana is of Moroccan descent. An author’s note concludes. Ages 13–up. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Told in Jon’s and Adriana’s alternating perspectives, the story paints a vivid picture of a harsh reality.... An evocative glimpse into an unjust and unforgiving system." — Kirkus Reviews

"The intersectionally diverse teen characters that populate this smoothly plotted, emotionally intense read are fully developed and represent a range of incarceration experiences... Close third-person narration melds letters and slam poetry–inspired verse to deliver a high-stakes, dual-perspective love story that critiques juvenile incarceration and celebrates the connective power of the written word." — Publishers Weekly

"With its emotional intensity, thoughtful storytelling, and wrenching conclusion, this addictive, gently romantic page-turner will hit readers in both the heart and the gut. Hand this to readers who value ride-or-die friendships and hard-won heartache, and those who grew up loving Holes and are ready to grapple with a grittier take on juvenile justice."
— Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

From the Publisher

2024-04-05
Two incarcerated teens find hope and connection within the pages of a shared journal.

The silver lining of Adriana’s court-ordered seven-month stint in Compass Juvenile Detention Center is the treasured journal where she writes her private thoughts in verse. After misplacing it, she’s furious to find the journal shelved in the library, its pages defaced by someone else’s writing. But this person isn’t just writing commentary—he’s writing to her. Jon has spent nearly four years developing a “fierce reputation” at Compass. The two create a clever method of exchanging the journal, shedding their tough exteriors and revealing their innermost selves to one another. Security inside the gender-divided facility renders in-person contact between Adriana and Jon impossible, but with help from their friends, they hatch a risky plan to lay everything on the line. The intensity of their infatuation escalates quickly, setting the pace for the story’s action-packed second half, which includes a secret code, a hidden plan, and betrayal. Adriana has Moroccan, Greek, and Spanish ancestry, and Jon is Black; teens who are diverse in ethnicity, race, and ability live at Compass. Told in Jon’s and Adriana’s alternating perspectives, the story paints a vivid picture of a harsh reality but misses the opportunity to address class, race, and the impact of racism in the juvenile detention system in meaningful ways.

An evocative glimpse into an unjust and unforgiving system with a gooey love story at its core. (authors’ note) (Fiction. 13-17)

Kirkus Reviews