Review: Broken Pieces, by Riley Hart
Jul. 25th, 2021 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
militantlyromanticThis is an MMM, so we have three male leads. Our first is Josiah, our second Mateo, our third Tristan. We meet Josiah and Mateo when they are teenagers and are being fostered in the same home. Josiah knows he's gay and evidently presents as gay enough that he's bullied for it at school, but his foster parents don't seem suspish. Mateo also knows he's gay, but doesn't present that way and has had some pretty intense toxic masculinity beaten into him by his dad, who's currently in prison.
The way race is handled in this book is pretty interesting. I've seen people identify Hart as a WOC. Honestly, I have no idea if she is or not, I've never seen a picture of her, I've never seen her say one way or another, etc. And even if she is a WOC, I have no idea WHAT color she may or may not be, which means I can't identify whether this is an #ownvoices book or not. Idek if Hart identifies as queer or not, to be honest.
Mateo's father runs a gang, and his uncle is running it in said father's stead. Mateo is positioned in a lot of ways as someone who is a victim to his circumstances. The problem is, he often valorizes Josiah's willingness to acknowledge his own queerness, where Mateo hasn't been allowed to do such, in a way that doesn't recognize the class/race privilege difference. E.g., Mateo loves Josiah because he's so "brave" to be "out" (I put out in quotes because it felt less to me that Josiah was out than that he wasn't lying about his gayness, which are actually two different things. Both are valid options, but for queer persons for whom the difference is one of safety, the difference is hella significant.) The problem is, Josiah can be "out" in a way Mateo has never felt he can be because, well, his safety has never been threatened by it. Josiah clearly comes from like...white suburban parents who loved him and it's unclear it they would have accepted his gayness or not, but we don't get the feeling he would have been unsafe telling them. Mateo is very pointedly from a culture in which machismo/toxic masculinity is incredibly significant and being out WOULD have been unsafe. I don't necessarily think it's wrong for Mateo to find Josiah brave, in a certain manner, but the underpinnings of that bravery are never really explored and I think that might be part of why I had a hard time hooking in.
Add to this, teenage love is something you have to convince me of pretty heavily to begin with--teens are, well, teens--and Mateo seems to love Josiah because Josiah is the first person who has looked at Mateo like he was worth something. That's not actually a reason for lifelong love. Meanwhile, it honestly feels like Josiah loves Mateo because Mateo protects him and is a boy, and attractive, and they have access to each other. In other words, I'm never really convinced that these two like each other as PEOPLE, so much as concepts in each other's lives.
There's a lot of somewhat predictable melodrama at the midpoint of the book with the foster mom getting cancer and Mateo getting kicked out mostly because they Nice White Foster Parents defs think the Mexican Kid is perverting the Nice White Kid, but Josiah runs away with Mateo, and then they go back to Mateo's uncle because that's how Mateo knows how to make money. Josiah ends up almost being assaulted seemingly because it's a rough area and Mateo does the whole "oh, if he's with me he'll never be safe" and rejects Josiah.
Then there's this long period of time where Josiah gets a job at a coffee shop in the PNW and eventually learns to make a friend despite himself, and finally starts going to college and you know, learning to be a human? This was the point where I was like "I realize this is supposed to be an adult romance, but if there's a whole section on learning how to be a single human, I honestly cannot."
Enter Tristan, the rich attorney (who...seems to maybe be a prosecutor?? Idk, it's very unclear what kind of law he does, but this was one of the most hardcore "wow, this person really doesn't understand how lawyers who make serious money make serious money" book I've read in a looooooong time) with Damage, who sees Josiah feeding ducks (because of this whole thing with Mateo about how they'd go feed ducks together and here his ass is, still feeding the ducks, which I'm guessing is meant to be romantic.)
On the plus side, Tristan and Josiah's romance made...more sense to me? Tristan is one of those "I had a crap upbringing, and all I care about is taking care of my mom and being rich" people, who has a single friend who he treats like crap and yet, of course, that friend is in love with him for reasons that are beyond imagining, but there you have it. In any case, he likes Josiah because Josiah is (at this point) sweet and optimistic, and makes Tristan do things that aren't work.
Tristan is of course all "I can't love you, I'm not made like that."
Josiah is like, "welp, I like you, so I guess this works for now, at least you're upfront about it."
And then they have lots of sex. *shrug emoji*
I will say, I love how Josiah's easy acceptance of Tristan's mom and her mental illness/trauma reach Tristan and get him to come out of his dumbassity. (It's a word now, I made it one.) Tristan's mom might have been the one part I really liked about this book.
Re-enter Mateo who has just gotten out of prison and somehow gotten free of his gang situation (how, you ask?? yeah, no, it was super unclear to me, but in fairness, I might have checked out by this point).
The last part of the book is Tristan and Mateo getting to know each other to see if they can make it work because they both recognize that making Josiah choose is a Bad Plan, and both of them want Josiah. The funny thing is, there's actually a fair amount over which these two could have bonded, given their upbringings/experiences. But again, it never feels like they like each other for each other, so much as because they need to for each of the to function with Josiah. Now, here's the thing. IRL poly? This is when you recognize each other as non-hierarchical metamours and move the eff on. And I realize this isn't IRL. But the writing never convinced me of the HEA or even the HFN.
This book was highly, highly recced on one of the comms I'm on, it clearly works for a lot of people. It just fell flat in pretty much every direction it could for me.
The way race is handled in this book is pretty interesting. I've seen people identify Hart as a WOC. Honestly, I have no idea if she is or not, I've never seen a picture of her, I've never seen her say one way or another, etc. And even if she is a WOC, I have no idea WHAT color she may or may not be, which means I can't identify whether this is an #ownvoices book or not. Idek if Hart identifies as queer or not, to be honest.
Mateo's father runs a gang, and his uncle is running it in said father's stead. Mateo is positioned in a lot of ways as someone who is a victim to his circumstances. The problem is, he often valorizes Josiah's willingness to acknowledge his own queerness, where Mateo hasn't been allowed to do such, in a way that doesn't recognize the class/race privilege difference. E.g., Mateo loves Josiah because he's so "brave" to be "out" (I put out in quotes because it felt less to me that Josiah was out than that he wasn't lying about his gayness, which are actually two different things. Both are valid options, but for queer persons for whom the difference is one of safety, the difference is hella significant.) The problem is, Josiah can be "out" in a way Mateo has never felt he can be because, well, his safety has never been threatened by it. Josiah clearly comes from like...white suburban parents who loved him and it's unclear it they would have accepted his gayness or not, but we don't get the feeling he would have been unsafe telling them. Mateo is very pointedly from a culture in which machismo/toxic masculinity is incredibly significant and being out WOULD have been unsafe. I don't necessarily think it's wrong for Mateo to find Josiah brave, in a certain manner, but the underpinnings of that bravery are never really explored and I think that might be part of why I had a hard time hooking in.
Add to this, teenage love is something you have to convince me of pretty heavily to begin with--teens are, well, teens--and Mateo seems to love Josiah because Josiah is the first person who has looked at Mateo like he was worth something. That's not actually a reason for lifelong love. Meanwhile, it honestly feels like Josiah loves Mateo because Mateo protects him and is a boy, and attractive, and they have access to each other. In other words, I'm never really convinced that these two like each other as PEOPLE, so much as concepts in each other's lives.
There's a lot of somewhat predictable melodrama at the midpoint of the book with the foster mom getting cancer and Mateo getting kicked out mostly because they Nice White Foster Parents defs think the Mexican Kid is perverting the Nice White Kid, but Josiah runs away with Mateo, and then they go back to Mateo's uncle because that's how Mateo knows how to make money. Josiah ends up almost being assaulted seemingly because it's a rough area and Mateo does the whole "oh, if he's with me he'll never be safe" and rejects Josiah.
Then there's this long period of time where Josiah gets a job at a coffee shop in the PNW and eventually learns to make a friend despite himself, and finally starts going to college and you know, learning to be a human? This was the point where I was like "I realize this is supposed to be an adult romance, but if there's a whole section on learning how to be a single human, I honestly cannot."
Enter Tristan, the rich attorney (who...seems to maybe be a prosecutor?? Idk, it's very unclear what kind of law he does, but this was one of the most hardcore "wow, this person really doesn't understand how lawyers who make serious money make serious money" book I've read in a looooooong time) with Damage, who sees Josiah feeding ducks (because of this whole thing with Mateo about how they'd go feed ducks together and here his ass is, still feeding the ducks, which I'm guessing is meant to be romantic.)
On the plus side, Tristan and Josiah's romance made...more sense to me? Tristan is one of those "I had a crap upbringing, and all I care about is taking care of my mom and being rich" people, who has a single friend who he treats like crap and yet, of course, that friend is in love with him for reasons that are beyond imagining, but there you have it. In any case, he likes Josiah because Josiah is (at this point) sweet and optimistic, and makes Tristan do things that aren't work.
Tristan is of course all "I can't love you, I'm not made like that."
Josiah is like, "welp, I like you, so I guess this works for now, at least you're upfront about it."
And then they have lots of sex. *shrug emoji*
I will say, I love how Josiah's easy acceptance of Tristan's mom and her mental illness/trauma reach Tristan and get him to come out of his dumbassity. (It's a word now, I made it one.) Tristan's mom might have been the one part I really liked about this book.
Re-enter Mateo who has just gotten out of prison and somehow gotten free of his gang situation (how, you ask?? yeah, no, it was super unclear to me, but in fairness, I might have checked out by this point).
The last part of the book is Tristan and Mateo getting to know each other to see if they can make it work because they both recognize that making Josiah choose is a Bad Plan, and both of them want Josiah. The funny thing is, there's actually a fair amount over which these two could have bonded, given their upbringings/experiences. But again, it never feels like they like each other for each other, so much as because they need to for each of the to function with Josiah. Now, here's the thing. IRL poly? This is when you recognize each other as non-hierarchical metamours and move the eff on. And I realize this isn't IRL. But the writing never convinced me of the HEA or even the HFN.
This book was highly, highly recced on one of the comms I'm on, it clearly works for a lot of people. It just fell flat in pretty much every direction it could for me.
