Beautiful Broken Things

By: Sara Barnard

Narrated by: Charlie Sanderson

I was brave
She was reckless
We were trouble

Best friends Caddy and Rosie are inseparable. Their differences have brought them closer, but as she turns sixteen Caddy begins to wish she could be a bit more like Rosie - confident, funny and interesting. Then Suzanne comes into their lives: beautiful, damaged, exciting and mysterious, and things get a whole lot more complicated. As Suzanne's past is revealed and her present begins to unravel, Caddy begins to see how much fun a little trouble can be. But the course of both friendship and recovery is rougher than either girl realizes, and Caddy is about to learn that downward spirals have a momentum of their own.

Read by Charlie Sanderson, Beautiful Broken Things is a moving story of friendship from debut author Sara Barnard, shortlisted for the YA Book Prize and selected as part of Zoella's Book Club.

Critic reviews

I felt like I was living this book.

This book is exquisite, and exactly what YA needs. Books about female friendships! I still can't get over how REAL this story was, every single part of it was perfectly realised. It was so sophisticated in how it was written, with beautiful BEAUTIFUL prose, and yet it never once dragged and I raced through it. It deals with difficult topics with sensitivity and humour, and doesn't once patronise the subjects it tackles. I am so excited to see what Sara writes next. This author is one to watch!

If you loved Jennifer Niven's 'All the Bright Places' this is a book you need to get your hands on. . . This is a book where you just love the characters, you ache at the complexities of their feelings, you read with baited breath, just wanting what might be impossible, for everything to be ok.

Teenage girls are a mystery - even when you've been one! This tale of three such creatures - Caddy, Rosie and Suzanne - attempts to unravel their secrets and the result is quite something.

A moving, exhilarating YA novel about teen friendship... any reader who wants warmth, hilarity, vivid highs, lows and heartbreak should grab this book, which proves that feminist doesn't mean humourless and female-focussed doesn't mean lightweight.