This Body Won't Break, Lea McKee

 

Hope is a cruel emotion. It makes you cling to it 

Orphaned as a child, Joanna has lived her entire life in the care of the New Terra Alliance. On the verge of turning eighteen, Joanna eagerly awaits her release into what remains of society. 

Joanna was never meant to leave. She is part of the August Harvest, slated to die before the month’s end. With a rogue soldier’s promise to find her a way out, Joanna dares to hope. But if the NTA finds out what she knows, it won’t only be her own life at stake, but the life of the handsome soldier who has vowed to set her free. 

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3 / 5

First of all, this is not a book. It is a third of a book. I'm not a fan of authors releasing their books in sections and if I had realised that this is what Lea McKee was choosing to do, I would have waited until I could read the whole book at once. But I didn't read the summary carefully, so that's my own fault, really! Otherwise, this book had such a strong voice! I loved Joanna, it's just a shame that the plot to This Body Won't Break was so incredibly similar to another book I read recently: Body Parts.



For those that haven't read Body Parts or "cough* my review, let me summarise. Both books feature a teenage girl, in This Body Won't Break this is Joanna, an orphan raised for something heinous, in both books this is blood and organs but for different reasons, but told something else. Both girls are broken out from aforementioned institution by a very attractive young man. This is as far as Part I of This Body Won't Break goes and, whilst I'm certain it will diverge drastically from the plot of Body Parts given the whole disease-in-the-air idea, I was a bit disappointed by how like Body Parts it was. Such a shame that I read them so close to offer, because This Body Won't Break has a fantastic writing style.

The clock above my door has traded in its hands for knives. They cut and slice, shatter the minutes and seconds from existence

Seriously, I loved it. A great first person female voice is, I feel - possibly unreasonably -, becoming quite rare; Lea McKee's writing was enveloping, folding me into her world. It conveyed information, so that I always knew what was going on, with being claustrophobic about it, smothering me with long paragraphs of details. Joanna's strong and vibrant personality was at the forefront, whilst keeping the plot quickly moving.

I really enjoyed Part I of this book and I'll certainly be reading the rest when it is published!

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book