All Our Broken Pieces
All Our Broken Pieces
My hands shake as I reach for his face. He looks surprised, but he doesn’t stop me. Using the tip of my finger, I trace the scar. His eyes don’t leave mine for a moment. This is so damned intense. Like he sees through my armor into my soul and all its dark corners. Something in every single cell, each molecule, tells me this is a one-in-a-million event. I can guarantee Kyler rarely lets random girls next door touch him. I owe him a token of myself in return. Something real.
“So, Lennon from Maine, do I scare you?” he whispers.
I pull my hand away, pausing at his cheek to show that he doesn’t. “Not even a little.”
It’s true.
Those eyes. They mirror my own.
He’s been judged before. He’s different.
So have I. So am I.
“I’m broken, too,” I tell him.
“I know.” His voice is hoarse.
“You don’t,” I say, shaking my head. “Not really.”
“Tell me.”
I suck in a breath, holding it a little too long before I utter some of the bravest words to ever leave my mouth. “I have OCD.”
He doesn’t bat an eyelash.
“As in obsessive-compulsive disorder,” I continue.
His eyebrows knit together. Surprise registers on his face, but he says nothing.
“That’s why I tap things. Five. It’s my favored compulsion.”
“Your what?”
It’s easy to forget that not everyone knows about OCD. Not everyone is cursed enough to have to learn the lingo. “I get anxious. I think about terrible things. Awful things. Things that no person should ever think about, or at least admit to thinking about. And once I think them…” I pause nervously. “Once I think about them, it consumes my brain and eats at it like some kind of cancer. The thought dominates every single waking moment, over and over and over again. Like being forced to watch a gruesome movie in your head with your eyes wide open. The only way to make it stop, to get relief, to silence the goddamned thought, is to do things in patterns of five or whatever stupid, irrational, illogical idea my mind has in store.”
He considers what I’ve told him before he leans forward, breaking even farther into my personal space. He smells of mint and dryer sheets. Ocean breeze.
“What kind of things do you think about?”
“Dying, or someone dying because of me. My dad dying because of me.” I look down at my hands and pick at my fingernails. “Or what if someone I know gets kidnapped, raped, murdered, maimed, tortured? I’m certain that something I said or something I did was stupid or offensive. Like right now. I’m going to obsess later over what I should have said and should not have said in this conversation. Guaranteed.” I pause, short of breath.
Kyler’s ice-blue stare remains glued on mine.
“I have thoughts like that, and the only way to make them stop is to give into whatever compulsion,” I say. “Sometimes I tap things, mess with switches or door handles, whatever it is, it has to be in five. Everything has to be in five.”
My heart surges with such force, I’m positive it may break straight through my chest. I’d read once that hearts are wild animals, that’s why they’re kept in cages, but mine is determined to free itself in this moment. In the tree house of a boy who was burned in a house fire, whom I barely know, yet somehow he feels like everything I never knew I was missing.
“Lennon?” His voice is low, quiet.
“What?”
“Normal is boring.”
Lennon Davis has obsessive-compulsive disorder. She has faith in the number 5. Five flicks of a light switch, 10 twists of a door hand, 25 taps on a table assure her that things will be all right. If she doesn’t get into a car, her loved ones will be safe and healthy.
Kyler Benton was caught in a house fire when he was a child. Despite the heat of the California sun, he wears hoodies daily to hide the scars. He writes song lyrics each day to perform with his band, but his notebook pages now seem to be filled with descriptions of his new muse, Lennon from Maine with Serious Issues Who Sews.
The teens’ worlds collide when Lennon moves in with her father and step-family next door to Kyler’s family after the untimely death of her mother. They spark an instant connection after being assigned to work together on a Shakespearean assignment for English class. Their natural ease in communicating with one another allows them to begin supporting each other in putting their broken pieces back together again. Despite each facing their own challenges, as well as circumstances that threaten to keep them apart, each is hoping the stars will align and their love story will be a lot less tragic than Romeo and Juliet’s.
All Our Broken Pieces covers some serious themes including mental health, trauma, challenging family dynamics, death, and cyber-bullying, whilst also managing to deliver a lighthearted tale of teen romance, striking the perfect balance of the two. Both protagonists’ characters are well-developed and multi-faceted. Crichton has done a masterful job of creating realistic, relatable, imperfect, and likeable characters. Her striking prose demonstrates that Kyler and Lennon are human beings first and foremost and won’t be pigeonholed by their past experiences or diagnoses. Readers are likely to root for the teens’ plight as the star-crossed lovers face their fears and fight for their relationship.
The text consists of alternating chapters narrated by Lennon and Kyler. Through this alternating narration, readers will catch a glimpse into both teens’ minds in order to put together a well-rounded view of the plot. Kyler’s chapters begin with excerpts from his notebook, which are categorized as either “Random Thoughts of a Random Mind”, which consist of his thoughts and observations of Lennon and their experiences, or song lyrics he has written for his band. Lennon’s chapters begin with “Facts”, which contain statistics related to her mental health and her feelings toward Kyler and the events in her life. This plot device provides further insight into the perspectives of the teens and drives the plot forward.
All Our Broken Pieces is a well-balanced sweet teen romance that also covers serious themes relatable to teens. In addition, it paints a realistic portrait of the experience of a person with OCD. This book is likely to become a well-loved addition to any high school classroom or library.
All Our Broken Pieces is author L. D. Crichton’s first young adult novel. Her first book, The Enchantment of Emma Fletcher, was published in 2017. Born and raised in Alberta, Crichton was inspired to begin writing after watching her father write each evening after returning from work. Upon losing her mother, and subsequently realizing how fleeting life can be, she decided to pursue her goal of publishing a book sooner rather than later. As she simultaneously became a mother, a student, an employee, and a writer, she pressed on toward this goal.
Chasity Findlay is a graduate of the Master of Education program in Language and Literacy at the University of Manitoba and an avid reader of young adult fiction.