Lake Union Publishing, May 1, 2015.
Three Stars
Trail of Broken
Wings is a semi-autobiographical novel about three
daughters who were abused by their father throughout their childhood. They have
all moved on and created successful lives for themselves, but when their father
suddenly falls into a coma, all three girls are drawn back to their childhood
home to support their mother and make peace with their feelings towards their
father.
The youngest daughter, Sonya, has been estranged from
her Indian-American family for many years, travelling around the world as a
photographer. Her oldest sister, Marin, is a successful career woman with a
stable marriage and a teenage daughter who may be repeating Marin’s own
history. The middle sibling, Tricia, also has a seemingly perfect marriage, but
she is afraid to have children because of what she witnessed in her own
childhood – and her fears are driving away her husband.
Each of the girls have conflicted feelings about
whether their father will survive his coma – and as they reconnect with their
mother Ranee, they learn about her role in his trauma. Throughout their childhood,
they experienced aggression, bullying, and outright cruelty, and they came to
feel responsible for the toxic environment surround them. Marin and Sonya were
severely beaten, but Tricia was exempt, and the girls never understood why she
was given special treatment – until her suppressed memories return, revealing
shameful and shocking secrets.
The sisters and their mother tell a heartbreaking
story that shows how different people respond to abuse within the same family.
The abuse shapes the way they develop throughout the rest of their lives,
although some of the sudden personality changes were hard to believe. It was
interesting to see the effects of Ranee’s Indian culture on her actions, as she
tried to explain why she was unable to stand up to her husband and protect her
children.
The novel is built around well-timed plot twists that
pop up just when things started to drift, although they were often predictable
and one-dimensional. It is an intimate description of child abuse and domestic
violence, and even though it often felt emotionally manipulative, it was
obviously a tough topic for the author to explore. Unfortunately, the ending seemed
contrived and unrealistic, but it was the revelations throughout the novel that
kept it interesting.
I received this book from Lake Union Publishing and
NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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