I'm not really interested in the spate of alternate-view novels, but I loved [b:Easy|16056408|Easy (Contours of the Heart, #1)|Tammara Webber|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349370267s/16056408.jpg|19113823] so much that I was willing to take a chance on this one.

I'm very glad that it wasn't an exact repeat of Easy although there were some overlaps. There's enough new story here not to feel like a repeat and it definitely fleshed out Lucas' character. I didn't think the timeline transitions were smooth and the writing didn't feel nearly as polished. Overall, I'm happy to have read this, Lucas is seriously swoon-worthy.

More than anything, I don't feel like the author was taking advantage of the success of the earlier novel and milking her fans. I could have just re-read Easy every year and been happy but this is a nice side-story. ( )

HMMMM what to think about this one. Overall, I have to say for Tammara Webber to take this on is quite a task. As a reader of alternate POVs I love getting some alternative perspective, seeing into the head of a character who I was not given the opportunity previously. The snippets we have gotten of Four for example (Divergent) have been fantastic. But these were given in small doses. To take on a full on book, is another challenge all together and one that I just do not think worked here.

Breakable is essentially two stories. We have the Landon Story (pre Jacqueline) and we have the Lucas Story. I really enjoyed the Landon story, loved getting more history on his life in high school, his relationship with his dad, etc. At the same time, it alternated to the Lucas story, which at times did nothing for me. Having a scene in which he is expressing his love to a girl in High School married alongside a scene with Jacqueline just did not work for me at all.

So yes, I knew before hand that this was in part a retelling" and overall these retold scenes with Landon/Lucas and Jacqueline were really less than 50% of the book for sure. There were new scenes which I enjoyed but it was the retelling scenes where I was just left feeling nothing. This is again the challenge. Do you retell the scene exactly and risk boring your reader? Or do you skim over parts of the conversation and loose your reader on the intimacy and sexual tension that was so felt in Easy. Well TW took door number 2. I get it, we don't want to hear the same dialog but at the same time to get next to no dialog from Jacqueline in some scenes just lost me on their relationship all together. There were some scenes too that I felt deserved a full retelling and others could have been skipped altogether...the scenes learning self defense, while important, did not need retelling. I was bored. I also think these books could have been combined or Lucas/Landon's story could have been first.

So overall, I have said this before, I love Lucas, he is a complex character who had to deal with a lot of shit. His Landon side of the story kept this book from getting a 2 from me.

And while some people may love this...Lucas getting a damn tongue piercing on the last page, almost lost it for me all together. GAG!

Worth the read but just be prepared.
" ( )

AN OPEN LETTER TO: Landon Lucas Maxfield

Dear Lucas (Book Boyfriend),

Do you still go by Lucas or are you back to Landon? You know what, it doesn’t matter. What matters most is your happiness and a tragic free future. Sorry to bring up your ever so tragic past, but when I read Easy I can remember imagining what it was that you went through and how awful it must of been growing up with such turmoil in your soul; blaming yourself for your mother’s tragic death. And now after reading Breakable, I can say I had no idea at all how difficult it really was. I wished that your father wasn’t so lost in his grief that he would have noticed how much you needed him, needed each other, to deal with your pain. School was an awful time for you, and it was sad that no one, especially that old hag of a principal couldn’t see, that intervention instead of ridicule was needed.

As bad as Boyce was to your future, I think having him in your life was sort of a blessing and a curse. He definitely was an interesting fella, he made me laugh a few times, he has the strangest views on life and other stuff. Surprisingly he was actually a supportive friend, and gladly his friendship turned out to be more blessing than curse. Your grandpa also helped you coped some too, even if he didn’t talk much, at least more than your dad did anyway. So so happy that you had the Heller’s, Charles and Cindy, and their wonderful children. They did the most for you, eventually getting you back on the straight and narrow, narrowly escaping the future you could have had.

Another thing that I wasn’t completely privy to from Easy, was your totally swoon worthy attraction to Jacqueline, it almost bordered on obsession. Although I didn’t see it that way, I could see that you had just finally fallen in love. Even though you seemed to have recovered from you painful past, it was obvious that you were just functioning and could possibly just fall apart one day. I believe that Jacqueline came into your life at the right time. Your first chance to interact with her did not happen under the best of circumstances. But you’ve become kind of a protector to women since what happened to your mom and at that moment Jacqueline needed a hero and you were hers on that day. Sometimes we need good influences in our lives and Jacqueline became that for you. You two had some struggle getting there but eventually you became what each other needed at these critical moments in your life.

Okay, this is getting too long and probably too sappy for you Lucas so I’m going to end by saying that what I got from your story was how close it came to being even more tragic for you. Oh Lucas, all those risky things you did? You are so lucky that things didn’t get worse than it did. You were also very lucky to have the Heller’s and Jacqueline to make you see that you are worth it. It’s certainly okay to have someone, even a romantic love interest, be the catalyst to change and recovery. Especially when that person can make you see that you were not at fault for what happened and that you might need professional help. Sadly the love of a partner can only do so much. I want to wish you and Jacqueline a very Happy Ever After.

With Love,

Your Real Life (Girl)Friend?

P.S. No offense to Jacqueline about the book boyfriend thing, okay? And I hope I didn’t sound too obsessive there. Bye.

My Final Thoughts
Why the 4 rating? Well, from my feelings reading this book I sometimes felt like I was getting too much info, too much back story. I don’t know if it was just to make the book longer, but that’s the way it felt like for me. However, I really loved everything else about this book, great characters and certainly a thoughtful look at what a person might go through when tragedy happens. Also I might have been comparing Breakable too much to Easy, where I can see even more now that it was just the right amount of story. A story with a difficult topic that was handled so well, and making it the compelling story I thought it was when I first read it. And Breakable is certainly compelling in it’s own way too. ( )

This whole trend of marketing something as a new title when it's really just a different POV is really annoying. ( )

So I am not sure why exactly new adult series love to retell the first story from the guy's point of view in the second book, because it usually makes the male main character look kind of stalkery. "Breakable" is no exception; Landon/Lucas comes off as more than a little creepy, at least in my eyes. But maybe it's because I don't think that staring at a girl during class and sketching her is all that romantic, to be honest. There's not much new here; the author does go into Landon/Lucas's past, but all of the necessary information was already glossed over in the first book in the series. My final verdict: meh. ( )