Broken Glass Park: A Novel

This short and yet heavy novel is Alina Bronsky's debut novel. Originally published in German, it has been translated into English by Tim Mohr. Sasha Naimann is a teenage girl. She, her mother (Marina), stepfather Vadim, younger brother Anton and younger sister Alissa moved from Russia to Germany, where they settled into a Russian ghetto. Sasha, a brilliant woman, opens the book by saying that she plans to murder her stepfather because he murdered her mother and her mother's new boyfriend. Vadim is incarcerated, giving Sasha the belief that she has more time to plan his execution. Sasha takes care of her brother and sister with the assistance of Maria, also a Russian immigrant and Vadim's cousin. Sasha struggles with the powerful desire to remain in the apartment that her mother was murdered in, in the housing project known as the "Emerald," because her neighbors (also Russian immigrants), want her family to leave and take their bad luck with them. Sasha also feels like she doesn't wholly belong because she refuses to participate in the drunken, drug driven parties that her peers engage in in nearby Broken Glass Park - a park that literally has glass strewn about. What I loved about Sasha is that she has great capacity for love, in spite of the harsh hand that life has been dealt her. She is very protective of her younger siblings and she even agrees to tutor a neighbor in order to help her pass her exams and not be left behind in school. However, her capcity for actually being kind most of the time is non-existent because of what she has suffered. The translation and the writing style along with the memorable Sasha made this book a wonderful and memorable read. It went by insanely fast. I think that I read it in about a day and a half, which is a record for me having a child and a full time job and not as much time as I would like to read. This is definitely one for you to read.

It is a hard-knock life for 17-year old Sascha Naiman. Born in Russia she moved with her mother, step-father and two younger siblings from Russia to what is effectively a low-income apartment block in Berlin mostly populated with other Russian immigrants. She is also an orphan after witnessing the brutal murder of her mother by her step-father Vadim. The theme of the book is set in the opening paragraph: "Sometimes I think I'm the only one in our neighborhood with any worthwhile dreams. I have two, and there's no reason to be ashamed of either one. I want to kill Vadim. And I want to write a book about my mother. I already have a title: The Story of an Idiotic Redheaded Woman Who Would Still be Alive If Only She Had Listened to Her Smart Oldest Daughter. Or maybe that's more of a subtitle. But I have plenty of time to figure it out because I haven't started writing yet." After reading that opening paragraph I was hooked. Broken Glass Park is Alina Bronsky's first novel. Bronsky was born in Yekaterinburg in the Urals and moved with her family to Germany as a teenager. Translated from German, this debut novel really impressed me. There's a lot to like about Sascha: she's smart, tough, and resilient. She's got moxie and knows it. On the surface she is mature beyond her years. Necessity has dictated that, even when her mother was alive, she was the `adult' in the family. An older cousin has flown in from Russia to supervise the family and keep the children from `protective services', but Sascha remains the glue that keeps her family together. But, all appearances to the contrary, she is still a vulnerable and at times naïve teenager. She may be book smart and street smart but she still cannot help at times looking at the world through some pretty naïve eyes. Additionally, she's is incredibly closed. As one might expect after being a witness to family brutality, her emotions are well-hidden, or so it seems. Broken Glass Park was written in Sascha's voice and because Bronsky has done such a good job in articulating that voice the story had a great deal of appeal for me. What Bronsky has done very well is create a voice that only gradually reveals Sascha. We start off by seeing the gruff, smart exterior and what has happened to her and what she thinks of things seems to reveal itself in small accidental bursts that puncture the shell Sascha has created for herself. It feels as if we are finding out about Sascha at the same time she is finding out about herself. In essence, I believed the voice that Bronsky has created for Sascha. This is Bronsky's first novel and it shows at times. Sometimes the pacing of the story seemed a bit uneven and I didn't always have a feel for the time that had passed in between events in the story. But that said, after reading Broken Glass Park I was ready to read more of Bronsky's work because this book contained a promise of things to come. I do hope that her next book, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine , lives up to that promise. Highly Recommended. L. Fleisig

This first person narrative by a smart 17-year-old Russian girl living in a German slum got my attention from the opening and kept it to the end. It is a fast read and one that has a lot of appeal for readers of Sacsha's age. She is a character you like immediately who has experienced great tragedy - her beloved mother murdered by her stepfather - and she struggles to move on with her life. the appeal of the book comes from the nice combination of a well-told fast-moving story that also has complicated characters. All of the other people Sascha encounters - her siblings, the woman who cares for her, the hoodlum upstairs, the father and son who both love her, are none of them stereotypes but quite unique individuals. As Sascha does, I loved the father, Volker, a fair-minded journalist, and his son Felix. The ending is refreshingly ambiguous and keeps you wanting more books about Sascha. Recommended for young adult readers.

This book has evoked so many memories in me growing up in an immigrant community. Surely, it wasn't Germany but the U.S., yet we still had very similar characters in our neighborhood: abusive husbands, orphaned children, the overly-Russian kids who refused to accept anything too American. Yet, there were also good people, who worked hard, made sure their kids went to school and built new lives for themselves and their families. It is truly astonishing, though, that the main character had to go through all of this. I am hoping the author would consider writing a sequel about the girl's life say 10 years after the events described in "Broken Glass Park" and especially those of her siblings.

I'm not a big fan of fiction but this book had my attention from the first page to the last. A powerful story. Looking forward to reading more work from this author.