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A review by emleemay
Split by Swati Avasthi
4.0
4.5
[b:Split|6270483|Split|Swati Avasthi|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320410460s/6270483.jpg|6453798] was somewhere between 4 and 5 stars for me, so I'll go with 4.5 because I can't make my mind up. I spent most of the novel thinking I would give it 5 stars, but there was something a little unresolved for me. Okay, a lot unresolved, but DO NOT read this if you haven't read the book:
Spoiler
I wanted their mother to find a way out, I understood that this book's message is that it's not as simple as that, I understand why she struggled to leave him, how her life had been shaped around her husband and their violent existence... but I wanted the final message to be that it was possible, even though it was difficult. I didn't like how the ending seemed to be an acceptance that some people are just doomed to stay with their violent partner for the rest of their life.The story opens where Jace Witherspoon has finally left home, his mother, and his abusive father behind. He wants to start a new life with his older brother - Christian - who ran away years before and hopes his mother will eventually break away and join them. But Christian's life is very different now and he is reluctant to ever go back to the way things were before, not to mention the fact that Jace isn't being entirely honest, a lot has happened since Christian left and he isn't too eager to share a lot of it. Can Jace and Christian build a new life as brothers and put their violent upbringing behind them? Or will Jace's secrets bring the past crashing down onto the two of them?
What [a:Swati Avasthi|2851248|Swati Avasthi|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] has here that gave her the ability to write such a stand-out novel, is years of experience dealing with just these kind of people, relationships and abusive partners/parents. It shows, it really does. A lot of authors try to answer that question: why does an abuse victim still stay with their partner? Most of them fail because it's not a simplistic answer, you need to take a deep look into these relationships, see how the victims become psychologically changed to believe that they somehow deserve it, that they cannot cope with any other way of living, that the good times are worth the bad. I don't pretend to be an expert on domestic violence, but I knew someone who was in this kind of relationship and people always say "I just don't understand why they don't leave", "it's pretty simple, if someone hurts you, they don't love you, so you walk out the door". I've seen it first-hand and what they don't know is that the victims are being damaged far more psychologically than they are physically. You cannot tell someone to snap out of a mental disorder, and it is a very similar kind of thing. The routine of violence becomes so embedded into them that they start to just accept it. It's sad but true and [a:Swati Avasthi|2851248|Swati Avasthi|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] is one of very few authors who shows this.
But this isn't just a novel about domestic violence. It's a novel about how people can change their lives for the better, how with work you can choose to move on from your past and re-create yourself, how you do not have to let the bad stuff that has happened define you. It's about fear. Fear of another person, fear for another person, fear of yourself and who you might be turning into, fear of making the people around you just as screwed up as you are.
Moving and unforgettable.