I love to read, but I don’t have much patience for boring or poorly written novels. If I’m going to read, I want to know that I’ll at least enjoy it! Unfortunately, no matter how many reviews I read, it’s just not possible to avoid all the duds. When I find a really spectacular story I try to share it with as many people as possible!
The Broken Girls by Simone St. James is centered around Idlewild Hall, a reformatory school for troubled girls in small-town Vermont. We follow two main storylines: one modern, one from the 1950s. It’s a psychological thriller (think Gone Girl) with a supernatural element. This makes it a really excellent mystery with many threads that all weave together smoothly at the end. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
In 2014, washed-up journalist Fiona Sheridan is investigating the now-abandoned Idlewild Hall where her sister was found murdered twenty years ago. Someone was convicted for the crime but Fiona has never been able to let it go and feels that Idlewild is hiding something sinister. When someone decides to restore the property and re-open the school, Fiona takes the opportunity to investigate what really went on at Idlewild. The story becomes much bigger when a skeleton is unearthed on the old grounds.
In 1950, four teenage girls are wards of Idlewild Hall. They realize that something is very, very wrong at the school—it’s being haunted by a vengeful ghost. Chapters trade off between each girl’s perspective as they try to find the truth and survive their time at Idlewild. Their experiences give light to the events happening 64 years later in a really well-done and cohesive way that reveals the mystery slowly, but always keeps it tantalizingly close.
I really love this book. It’s the first thing I’ve read by Simone St. James but it definitely won’t be the last. I usually dislike supernatural elements in an otherwise realistic novel, but she really pulls it off well in The Broken Girls. The ghost story doesn’t feel out of place at all, even when they are discussing building renovations and unsolved murders. This would have been a very good book even if the ghost had been omitted or revealed to be fake—although its inclusion made really excellent. All of the characters have depth and their own stories to tell. Fiona is a sympathetic and likeable character who has been held back by the trauma of her sister’s murder and is struggling to move on and live her own life. I really like that she’s a few years older than her third-generation cop boyfriend, Jamie. Their relationship makes my romantic heart happy but it’s definitely not sugar-coated or unrealistically perfect.
I enjoyed the 1950s storyline set in the reformatory. St. James clearly did her research and showed how horrible those places really were. I am a criminal justice major and one thing we talk about a lot is that girls were sent to reformatory schools for petty things that boys were allowed to do without reproach (such as being “promiscuous,” running away or arguing with one’s parents), and this holds true for Idlewild. As each girl’s reason for being at Idlewild was revealed, I got more and more heated each time. The school is terrible, the teachers are cruel, but it all makes the perfect setting for a ghost haunting.
I hope you love this book as much as I did!