Breaking Beautiful discussion

Allie is the only survivor of a car accident that killed her boyfriend, town football star and golden boy, Trip. She has no memory of the accident, but is left with scar on her head and memories of the side of her relationship with Trip that no one else saw or chose to ignore, in some cases. See while Trip wore #33, he was no Tim Riggins. Allie suffered from Trip’s physical and mental abuse to the point where she has lost herself.
With Trip around, she was isolated from the rest of the school, but she was isolated with him for company. Now she is just alone.
Following Trip’s death, Allie slowly reconnects a friendship with her childhood friend, Blake. As their friendship slowly moves toward being something more, the mystery surrounding Trip’s death grows as well. While the town memorializes Trip .Allie for trying to move on with her life, local police begin to investigate, and Allie begins to question what really happened the night her boyfriend died.
Breaking Beautiful is a dark, mature, contemporary mystery.
While it has elements of romance and an exploration of the complexities of teenage relationships the mystery is at the core of the novel and it was easy to be swept into Shaw Wolf’s fast moving narrative. I love a dark mystery Allie’s character felt very real.
Told from her first-person point of view,in the book it shifts in time between the present and flashbacks of Allie’s increasingly-abusive relationship with Trip . The scenes in the past were tough, really tough. While reading, I could feel Allie becoming more and more of a shell, and started to dread the sections that took place in the past. But, Shaw Wolf manages this quite deftly, as I never felt like a mystery it was, quite simply, dark and real.
The secondary characters were also quite compelling, particularly Allie’s twin brother Alex, who has Cerebral Palsy and starts a relationship with the vibrant Caitlyn, who while playing a small role in the novel, steals every scene she’s in Allie’s friend I was quickly rooting for Blake who becomes something more he’s not perfect, but at his core he’s a good person who has always cared for Allie and he understands that he can’t push things with her,
Breaking Beautiful is not a perfect book, however.
I would have loved to see Blake’s transformation and character growth happen on the page. Allie’s first person point of view, much of what happens with Blake’s character we know only because Allie tells us these things have happened. He is a complicated and likable personality, I wanted to see more of where he was coming from and learn more about his life.