Review: ‘Unbreakable Love’ by Yesenia Vargas
Unbreakable Love by Yesenia Vargas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
[this review contains spoilers]
The thing I loved best about this book was how the characters (and, in particular, Carlos) changed throughout the novel. Okay, so Carlos was my favourite character; I loved how he had secrets, how the deeper depths to his personality were revealed as the novel progressed.
And I was impressed by the ending. Unlike most love stories that you read, this one doesn’t have the traditional happy ending. And I was so thankful for this. No, this book reflected real life, making the situations portrayed more relatable to readers, which improved the reading experience greatly.
I did spot a few grammatical errors, incorrect usage of tenses and missing words, but this is a minor point. There were also a few awkwardly-worded sentences, where it wasn’t clear which character the author was referring to as well. These errors (most were likely to be down to typos) didn’t stop me from reading this book, which is obviously a good thing.
Overall the characterisation was good, though I did find a few characters a little two-dimensional, but these were mainly the minor ones. But the main characters were excellent. As I said, Carlos was my favourite (even at the end!).
Being told in close third from Ariana’s POV (although I did notice some head-hopping, where we were informed of the inner-thoughts of other characters) the characterisation of the protagonist was really good. Although her personality is rather different to mine, there were still aspects of her to which I could relate to. And by the end of the book, I really felt that I knew what type of person Ariana was.
And another thing I loved about the main character? She was flawed. She made mistakes. She was realistic. This was a believable character, and that made it so much easier for me to relate to her, even though, overall, my personality is different to hers. But she seemed real, that’s my point.
In places, I found the plot a little predictable and slow at times, but I really liked the depiction of ‘family life’ as a theme in this novel, as well as how the characters kept secrets from one another.
In the last chapter or so (after Jimmy was in hospital), I did find that there was more telling going on than showing, but the loose ends were tied up really well.
Normally, I read fantasy and science fiction, but I enjoyed this novel–it was refreshing, and Yesenia is really good at creating suspense, and believable characters who control the plot.
And, finding out that my name was in the acknowledgements section was an added bonus!
