Broken for You

by Stephanie Kallos

“A dazzling mosaic of intersecting lives and fates . . . Comparisons to John Irving and Tennessee Williams would not be amiss in this show-stopping debut” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).   The national bestseller and Today Show Book Club selection, Broken for You is the story of two women in self-imposed exile whose lives are transformed when their paths intersect . . .   When we meet septuagenarian Margaret Hughes, she is living alone in a mansion in Seattle with only a massive collection of valuable antiques for company. Enter Wanda Schultz, a young woman with a broken heart who has come west to search for her wayward boyfriend. Both women are guarding dark secrets and have spent many years building up protective armor against the outside world. As their tentative friendship evolves, the armor begins to fall away and Margaret opens her house to the younger woman. This launches a series of unanticipated events, leading Margaret to discover a way to redeem her cursed past, and Wanda to learn the true purpose of her cross-country journey.   “I absolutely fell in love with this book. . . . There is a message here about creating family in the most unusual places. . . . A wonderful, engaging story.” —Sue Monk Kidd, New York Times–bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees   “Well-crafted plotting and crackling wit make this debut novel by Seattle author Kallos a delight to read and a memory to savor . . . Book groups will enjoy discussing the layers of meaning, the stylistic nuances, and the powerful message of hope secreted in these pages.” —Booklist (starred review)

Genres: Fiction, Book Club, Contemporary, Audiobook, Friendship, Adult Fiction, Holocaust

394 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 23, 2004

About the author

Stephanie Kallos spent twenty years in the theatre as an actor and teacher. Her short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and received a Raymond Carver Award. Her first novel, BROKEN FOR YOU, received the Pacific Northwest Book Award, the Washington State Book Award, and was chosen by Sue Monk Kidd as the December 2004 selection for "The Today Show." Her second novel, SING THEM HOME, was featured as an IndieBound selection and chosen by Entertainment Weekly as one of the Top Ten Books of 2009. Her third novel, LANGUAGE ARTS, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the spring of 2015. Stephanie lives with her husband and sons in North Seattle.

Reviews

[Jonquil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this book for our book club in St. Helens, Oregon.
This is the best book I have read in years. The story is zany in a believable way and it's just full of the kind of charm and magic I wish for in my own life! We all have loss and sadness in our lives somewhere and I love how the women in this book deal with it!

[Cathrine ☯️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Club Pick

3★ What I thought. A mansion full of coveted ceramic art that has been a prison of sorts becomes a sanctuary for misfits with emotional baggage. The story centers around mostly sentimental characters and a plot loaded with contrivances and coincidences that are unbelievable with the predictable ending.

There were elements I really did not like. The dream sequences, Wanda’s ongoing ungrateful attitude, breaking the irreplaceable ceramics which brought back the reaction I had when the necklace was so casually tossed overboard in Titanic. There had to be better ways to pay homage in both stories, but yeah, I get it. The first half was far better than the second which was too broken for me.

It is necessary for me to suspend reality and embrace fantasy occasionally. I enjoyed the reading experience just as I did watching Little House episodes with my granddaughters and some of those Hallmark movies, especially around the holidays when I’m feeling softer and less edgy and, well you know. How many times can I watch Miracle on 34th Street or It’s A Beautiful Life, or read books like this? Hopefully until I die. On a side note I offer up my own homage. The great Maureen O’Hara died the day before I finished and I could picture her as Margaret. “I can, I did, and I will.” RIP.

What they thought.

5★ Enjoyable, humorous, feel good story about turning a house into a home and building a family from strangers. Loved how Margaret discovered her purpose and went out on her own terms by enriching and bringing life to others during the process of losing her own. Right timing for an uncomplicated and fun, quirky read.

3★ Loved part 1, liked part 2, hated part 3 which was a crash and burn ending as well as boring. Breaking the porcelain was a waste of precious artifacts and could have been utilized to a higher purpose. Wanda and Troys relationship was a picture of extremes going from nothing to something with nothing in between. Very dissatisfying.

Conclusion: Because of the parts we liked so much and as this was the author’s first novel, all of us would like to read her third and latest 2015 release. We all enjoy a good comfort read but wished this had a better realized ending.

[Linda Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

An imaginative tale that explores how physical things tether us to our history and how they can prolong our pain.. This idea is woven into a story about an elderly woman, Margaret, a wealthy recluse tied to a home that is chock full of procelains, pottery and all things breakable. As the story opens, Margaret receives the news that she has a fatal brain tumor.

Margaret is determined to expand her life, but she’s not ready to leave the safety of her home. She decides to take in a boarder. Enter Wanda, a young woman who is tethered to nothing except her pain, and searching for the ‘man that got away’. Both women are drowning in their pain.

A recipe for a book I would normally avoid at all costs. In Kallos’ hands though, this story is warm, charming, improbable, touching, funny, anything but grim. A small example of how Kallos handles this strange story: before she can take in a boarder, Margaret is compelled to confer with her ‘collection’, to make sure she has their approval. Kallos’ uses this to let the reader know just how important this collection has become to Margaret. The old woman works through how she will break the news, rather like a CEO who has decided his company should make a major acquisition and is comtemplating how best to approach his board of directors.

Margaret is a woman I liked almost immediately. She is reserved, yet polite and caring. She is bright and steel-willed, yet always willing to listen to others’ points of view.

Wanda was a little harder to like, an artistic prickly waif who is a peace maker at heart, yet with underpinnings of anger that make her surly and unpleasant when she is confronted with people that try to reach out to her.

“Broken’ is full of coincidences that you might just dismiss as clumsy plot devices, except you can’t because they are so intriguing. You want to see where they lead. Many of them are so obvious that you KNOW where they are leading. But still you keep turning the pages. Then add a couple of ghosts.

The only flaw for me were all the dream descriptions. Many of them seemed very contrived. They detracted from the narrative, but they didn’t ruin it.

Put all these elements together and you get a thoroughly pleasant read that will keep you smiling for days after you reluctantly come to the last page.

[Ingrid · Rating 1 out of 5]

The reviews of this book compared it to works by Ann Tyler because of the quirky characters. I have always loved Ann Tyler's books. I think that the difference between her stories and Broken For You is that Ann Tyler's characters and stories are believable. I did not find this story believable at all. Margaret lives in beautiful mansion full of priceless china, but she has closed herself off from the rest of the world after the death of her son. After she learns that she has a brain tumor she takes in a border. Wanda is also an unhappy soul who has also cut herself off from the world. The china that Margaret owns comes from her father. The china was stolen from Jews during the Holocaust. I can understand why Margaret wanted to get rid of the ill gotten gains from her father, but I cannot imagine smashing all of those beautiful ceramics. It just seemed that there must be a better way for her honor the true owners of these beautiful treasures. There are more characters and twists to this story, but for me they couldn't rescue this book.

[Annalisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for book club, church book club, when a librarian suggested it. It starts off okay, intriguing enough, and then the story breaks apart. An elderly dying woman, Margaret, living alone in a mansion full of valuable porcelain suddenly abandons her recluse live to take on a border, Wanda, who is a sad, directionless girl pinning after her ex-boyfriend as well as dealing with her own parental issues. The women bond because they are both broken and tentatively guarding their hearts and secrets from intruders. Soon you discover that all these artifacts were stolen from exiled Jews by her father and weighing heavily on Margaret's conscious. What to do with the treasures?

Sounds okay so far, but between hippie artsy pottery breaking sessions, taking on quirky, cliche roommates galore so the mansion mirrors a free-loving colony right out of the sixties, and new and old relationships mended and explored with way too much get in touch with your feelings emotion for me to care, I could not take this story. Throw on pretentious writing, a plunge from intelligent plot to racy romance novel level, too many f words, and well I've already mentioned the unbelievable plot and character stew and this novel is a recipe for a book I didn't care to finish. I only did because I rarely put down a book I've invested so much time in. I just couldn't imagine it could get worse and yet it continually downgraded. I'm not sure how this made it to the national best sellers unless librarians are pawning it off on unsuspecting victims everywhere.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Broken for You is a book populated with characters who have experienced great sadness, it is not a sad book. On the contrary, this book is about people who move past their sadness, their brokenness and their grief to live. I was drawn to this book for its characterization of being a book about family being what you make out of the community surrounding you. It was encouraging while reading this book to realize the community/family surrounding me and that people continue to grow and thrive even after tragedies.

The characters in this book are quirky, tragic and fully believable. And unlike many characters in fiction books that I enjoy, I would love to know many of these characters in real life because I'm sure we would be great friends. Both Wanda and Margaret have lots to offer each other and the reader. I enjoyed their company while reading the book and loved seeing their relationship grow and evolve over the course of the narrative.

I also enjoyed the incorporation of art into the narrative - not only performing arts, but visual art. I loved imagining the creations and the creative community surrounding this cast of characters and I loved that many of the people in this book found redemption through art and community.

As I neared the end of this book, I was desperately hoping for resolution for some of the characters, but I didn't want an ending that wasn't true to the story. I thought the ending perfectly accomplished this. If you're in the mood for a book with some depth, some quirks and some hope, I highly recommend this book.

[Erika · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. It had such potential. My Mom gave it to me after she said that she couldn't get into it enough to finish. I should've heeded that as a warning because I felt exactly the same way. It had all the elements to what I am normally drawn to - wounded, lost, yet interesting characters who form unexpected and unusual bonds, and find parts of themselves they didn't know existed. (I just described the plot of every indie movie I've liked) Despite this, I had very little attachment to the characters, and couldn't really be bothered to cheer for them. I especially did not like one of the two protagonists, Wanda, who is sad and crazy and not in a way that made me want better for her. I'd read this book for a time and then put it down and forget about it for several weeks. I did this several times before giving up about 2/3 the way through. Lesson: next time, listen to Mom.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let's pretend I stopped reading this book halfway through. This would have been my review: The characters are interesting and well-developed, though the story is a little thin on plot.

Now let's pretend I read the entire book, which unfortunately I did. This is my real review: WTF? The plot starts halfway through and every bit of it is completely unbelievable. The new characters are caricatures, the original characters go off the deep end, and the story hinges on one ridiculous coincidence after another.

Weird.

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is so much to dislike about this book! But I found it to be inexplicably entertaining. (Spoiler alert!) Gotta love a book with a ghost like Margaret's mom, the colorful dreams, and the wackyness of all these people. Gotta hate the sheer abundance of "broken" parallels (what, did she write a list of things that can be broken and include multiple examples of each? (Porcelain, hearts, bones, etc.)) Gotta love Irma and the three-legged cat, Maurice. Gotta hate the wanton destruction of historical items. Gotta love the message that things are just things.

[aubrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a wonderful book of community and surrogate families. i loved the way all the stories weaved together and intertwined in a complex, but beautiful way. everyone's stories made me feel deeply and be grateful for my family and my friends and neighbors. and made me want to be a better person and contribute to the world around me. i also enjoyed that it took place in seattle about ten years ago, so i could relate to a lot of the locations in the book. there was one small part in the book, though not detailed and graphic, that was still sexually crass. i would skip that part if you were to read it. and the F word and other various curse words are throughout the book {not in an abnoxious way but as the way that one or two of the characters, mostly men, speak} but i thought the beauty of the book and the stories it told outweighed those. just an FYI, though.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Broken Lives Pieced Back Together
This was a book club selection that received a luke warm review from our group of ten. I, however, was one of the few who truly enjoyed reading Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos.

While many felt elements of the plot were too contrived—and they were—for me it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story, and particularly from the entertaining and well-developed characters.

This is a unique story. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me angry. Anything that can evoke this much emotion is, to me, WORTH the read.

Broken For You is about Margaret, a woman near the end of her life in Seattle, Washington, who comes to terms with the circumstances that enabled her to inherit a fortune and preside over a precarious collection of artifacts. When she is diagnosed with a brain tumor, she finds a way to solve her personal puzzles and her lifelong dilemma of housing glass/ceramic/porcelain objects that were confiscated from European Jews during the Nazi regime.

The first thing Margaret does is take-in a boarder, a young woman named Wanda. They are both in a sense, “broken,” and together they find a way to resolve their personal issues. Through art and the creation of a surrogate family, they bond and their stories unfold.

That’s just a brief summation . . . but it’s worth reading every page to understand how they get to resolution—the unusual and even aggravating way they do it—and to meet the unique characters that play a role along the way.

Well written, original and I highly recommend.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very different, yet special story about two women and a houseful of others who come together in ways to create a community.

And even with their secrets, much is revealed and learned and healed.

But most of all, love grows in the best way.

I don’t want to say much else without revealing the plot.

Just to say that it was selected as a Today’s Book Club in 2005, if that gives you any indication about its uniqueness and why it may be worth your time.

[Michelle Hendricks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished the book but wouldn't recommend it. It had potential. Two women connect. Both lost souls in their own way. One woman, Margaret, has treasures (stolen by her father) from Holocaust victims. She understandably wants to atone and get rid of these items. She hasn't found a single owner though she has searched. Solution? Of course, have lost soul #2, Wanda, break priceless items and create mosaics out of them (She's never created art before but is about to become a famous artist using broken Jewish treasures). Umm, why not give them to the Holocaust museum for a huge money making exhibit (=atonement), or sell them and give the $ to a Jewish charity. I guess breaking stuff makes for a better plot? I just kept thinking maybe it will get better and never got involved in the story. Then there is a side story of Wanda's long lost father finding her after she became a famous artist. Things were wrapped up too neatly for these lost souls. Had potential, but somewhere along the way the author lost me.

[Bonnie G. · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is really .. not very good. That is not to say it is awful or unreadable, just not good. This was recommended to me by someone I know very slightly. I will remember not to look to her for referrals in the future.

The characters here are entirely unrealsitic but it is clear that the author did not intend for them to be so. The author was clearly looking for "quirky" but instead ended up at "ridiculous." I can do the zany thing, but it takes a pretty skilled hand to blend zany with child abandonment, death, and Nazis ("The Producers" notwithstanding.) Also, if you are going to base a book on a dying character (you find this out in the first few pages) make it someone about whom we really care if they live.

[Lisa Gallagher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting that the author has chosen to write about broken bits of china because this was one of the more fractured stories I've read. The book starts off as one thing, becomes several more stories somewhere along the line and ultimately ends as a very different tale. The characters were so interesting and yet I found them behaving in the most unbelievable ways. How does a 70+ year old dying woman who has disdained company for much of her life suddenly decide to not only take in a border and allow this complete stranger free reign of her home, but then to suddenly take in more borders. How does her border not know (and everyone else does) that Margaret is dying? How 'bout them stereotypes, like the eldery Holocaust survivor? And how about the gay Jewish chef and the near-middle aged nursing assistant suddenly having a baby together to create a living mosaic of this new American family? The only character I truly liked at the end of the story was the one we weren't introduced to at the beginning - Wanda's father. Everyone else, once the author introduced us to them and explained who they were, suddenly acted like someone else entirely. I liked how she connected the two stories together, but I think had she introduced the characters of M.J. and Irma much earlier and left out the additional characters in the Margaret/Wanda story line, it might not have felt so... clunky.

[Rebekkila · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the first part of the book. Margaret has been living alone in a castle outside Seattle, her expensive porcelain collection is her only friend. She doesn't interact much with with world until she finds out she has a brain tumor. She places an ad in the local patient for a roommate and a young woman named Wanda shows up.

The story then turns in to something like the Island of Misfit Toys. She takes in more and more boarders. People who are broken like her. Most of the characters are pretty likable except for Wanda who is a crazy stalker. The way they heal is by breaking the expensive porcelain in Margret's house and making mosaic art pieces and installations.

It turns out that the porcelain had been bought by her father from Nazi's in France who confiscated the expensive belongings of the Jewish people they had arrested and sent off to concentration camps.

I didn't necessarily like the fact that they were smashing someone Else's belongings. Even though they did find the owners of a few items they could have donated the items to a survivors group in France. I didn't like how they rallied around Wanda after she suffers a serious injury while in the act of stalking. I thought the story got really silly at the end and wrapped up too neatly.

I would have given this one star but I did like the first one hundred pages or so.

[Suzette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a very unusual experience reading this book. The description on-line is very apt, and I agreed with it overall. What became interesting as I was reading was that the book itself seemed to mirror the contents to me, the reader. So I would be reading along, getting very involved, and then suddenly everything would “explode into pieces” and would have to be reconstructed into something new from the pieces. As things began to come together in a way that would make a new kind of sense in a different way, everything would suddenly explode again, rebuild again, etc. etc. etc. So the book itself became a perpetual motion machine all the way until the end, creating in the reader (me) the contents of the story itself. Pretty trippy…

[Christy imworthyandenough · Rating 1 out of 5]

No. Just..no. So wordy, and yet I have no idea what the heck I'm even reading. Into the donation pile.

[Jakky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish there were half stars...... I’d give it 3.5. This one would be a good choice for a book club because I feel as though I need to discuss it before I can decide how I feel about it. I need someone to explain some of it to me because there are parts that I just don’t understand. I have to admit that I skipped entire pages of endless introspection. I have no patience for dream sequences and skipped those too.

There were parts that I really liked and enjoyed and was anxious to return to. I loved the quirky characters - that is always a winner for me. I appreciated their unusual situations and the circumstances that drove them. I liked how Margaret’s son and mother came closer and more often as her health waned. I loved that Margaret opened up her mausoleum of a home to an ever growing family of misfits and gave them a reason for being and a sense of belonging.

There were parts that made me want to slap the character/author upside the head. I hated the destruction of extremely valuable artifacts which were not only historical but, in reality, not Margaret’s to destroy. If it had been her own, I would have put it down to a folly of the ridiculously wealthy. But the proceeds could have funded great causes that would have gone a long way to righting the past wrongs of her family/father.

In the end, I pushed through to finish it which is something I should never say about a book that I truly enjoyed.

[Stevie · Rating 5 out of 5]

For it being her first book Stephanie Kallos did an amazing job! I highly recommend this book for its historical value and also creative arts appeal.

[Anna W · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the cover/title I thought this was going to be more of a fluffy romance. It ended up being so much more. Really incredible unique characters, sweet ending, just overall a thoughtful and well developed story. I loved it.

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw Kallos speak earlier this year and she was just delightful. This story, however, was really sprawling and not all that engaging.

[Dee Georgette · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books, I keep hoping it will be made into a movie. The characters psychological problems and quirks make you fall in love with them.


The below came from "Book Browse" BOOK SUMMARY


Broken for You is a novel of infinite charm and tremendous heart that explores the risks and rewards of human connection, and the hidden strength behind things that only seem fragile. With a riotous energy that recalls the works of John Irving and Anne Tyler, Kallos brings to life a delightful set of characters—among them an old woman who converses regularly with her porcelain collection; a young woman who can fix a leaky sink but can��t stop her own tears from falling; a Yeats-loving bowling enthusiast; and a woman who survived a world war with her sense of humor (and her affinity for Hawaiian shirts) intact.

When we meet septuagenarian Margaret Hughes, she is living alone in a mansion in Seattle with only a massive collection of valuable antiques for company. Enter Wanda Schultz, a young woman with a broken heart who has come west to search for her wayward boyfriend. Both women are guarding dark secrets and have spent many years building up protective armor against the outside world. But as the two begin their tentative dance of friendship, the armor begins to fall away and Margaret opens her house to the younger woman. This launches a series of remarkable and unanticipated events, leading Margaret to discover a way to redeem her cursed past, and Wanda to learn the true purpose of her cross-country journey. Along the way, a famous mosaic artist is born, a Holocaust survivor is reunited with her long-lost tea set, and a sad-eyed drifter finds his long-lost daughter.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Stephanie Kallos's Broken for You, pieces of the story fit together in the same manner as the pieces of Margaret Hughes's porcelain antiques. The story begins when Margaret, an older woman, learns that she has a brain tumor, and may only live a few years more. After placing an ad for a boarder, Wanda Shultz shows up on her doorstep. The women are both broken in many ways, and their relationship builds from this bond. Subsequently, Margaret reveals that the antique porcelain acquired by her father actually belonged to Jewish people in Europe during World War II. Margaret contemplates what to do with these valuables; Wanda is caught up in deciding between tracking down her ex boyfriend and pursuing a new love interest; and all the while, additional characters and story lines are interwoven.

I enjoyed reading this book, which is listed as a "Today's Book Club" item. Kallos did a wonderful job of developing her characters, each one reflecting his/her particular nuances; yet somehow, she manages to draw them all together in a very fitting ending. Hopefully, Kallos will continue writing, as I am looking forward to future books from her.

[Lani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book in our house - not sure how it got there, but it was a decent read. I happen to like stories about people, so it worked out for me. It's roughly about a few people and their quirks and trying to make changes to break out of ruts/self-destructive ruts. Interesting and fairly funny.

An older lady has lived in her house for years, just surrounded by antiques which are dear to her, but maybe not exactly cherished. She decides to be a little wild and rents out one of her rooms to a young lady, who also has her own bits of crazy. It goes on from there, folding more people into their bits of fun/healing insanity.

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the title of this book, you'd think it was a downer. But instead, this novel shows that from brokenness can come healing in unimaginable ways. Some things--but not everything--wrap up just a little too neatly at the end, but it really was a page-turner, with characters you can't help but find yourself pulling for. The story begins with an older, reclusive woman learning she has a brain tumor--and deciding to make big changes in her life. These changes involve several other people she meets in the coming months, and the story leaves you smiling. A. 02/08/08

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good practice is when readers talk, listen. I'm so glad that I listened to someone who recommended this novel. It is layered with the stories of lives that intersect in the most unexpected ways. While the focus is on Wanda and Margaret, there are threads of lives that extend from and to them and stretch across time and countries, making it a small world indeed. Kallos redefines relationships and family in a novel where broken becomes whole and whole becomes broken, and everything and everyone is the better for it. Reading this book is an experience that reaffirms the experience of reading itself.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I liked this book so much because I could relate to so many of the characters in one way or another. And maybe I'm not as messed up as I thought; we're all broken in our own, different ways and it's never too late to fix things, even if such things are only as we perceive them and we fix them from within.

Irma gave good advice: " 'Choose life.' Make friends. Play cards. Bowl. Go to Hawaii."

I would've given 5 stars if Margaret had known who M.J. Striker was, and maybe she did, but I really wanted her to acknowledge it. And also if only Irma would've learned about the tea set! So many things I wanted resolved.

[Marilyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are interesting elements in this book -- colorful characters, heartbreaking and heartwarming situations, thoughts about what makes a family, fascinating take on the dregs of the Holocaust -- but I simply could not love the book. It seemed so very contrived. I cried at the end that I was glad to have reached. I liked so many little vignettes, but is was not seamless. I read it for my book group. Now, I have to tell them I was not enchanted when I know many of them really, really liked it.

[bookSmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quirky characters pieces break to heal.