All Our Broken Pieces
| Posted: May 29, 2020 4:31 PM | Last Updated: June 11, 2020
L.D. Crichton
Lennon Davis doesn't believe in much, but she does believe in the security of the number five. If she flicks the bedroom light switch five times, maybe her new LA school won't suck. But that doesn't feel right, so she flicks the switch again. And again. Ten more flicks of the switch and maybe her new stepfamily will accept her. Twenty-five more flicks and maybe she won't cause any more of her loved ones to die. Fifty more and then she can finally go to sleep.
Kyler Benton witnesses this pattern of lights from the safety of his tree house in the yard next door. It is only there, hidden from the unwanted stares of his peers, that Kyler can fill his notebooks with lyrics that reveal the true scars of the boy behind the oversize hoodies and caustic humour. But Kyler finds that descriptions of blond hair, sad eyes and tapping fingers are beginning to fill the pages of his notebooks. Lennon, the lonely girl next door his father has warned him about, infiltrates his mind. Even though he has enough to deal with without Lennon's rumoured tragic past in his life, Kyler can't help but want to know the truth about his new muse. (From Hachette Book Group)
From the book
Goals. Everyone's got to have them, at least that's what my dad says. For the last two years, it's been my mission — no my goal — to make our front lawn resemble a football field for no other reason than to piss my father off. Don't get me wrong — guys like him don't mind having lawns that resemble football fields. Therein lies the problem. He'd love it. He'd admire it. He'd bask in its undeniable glory with unshakable pride. More than that, he'd rage. The sort of red-faced-vein-throbbing-style pissed because accepting the perfect lawn means I mastered something he never could. I've come close before, alternating the height of the grass in patches, but I still haven't perfected it. That is my goal.
Here's my theory: He likes to make me work. Thinks it'll teach me to be a real man. Maybe that's true, and hey, if the art of lawn maintenance is his vision for my future, then who am I to argue? The truth is, it isn't like that at all. He wants me to be a yuppie attorney, just like him. Guy doesn't want a kid; he wants a clone. Better luck next time, old man. I'd rather die.
From All Our Broken Pieces by L.D. Crichton ©2019. Published by Hachette Book Group.