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Review: What Unbreakable Looks Like by Kate McLaughlin

Name: What Unbreakable Looks Like

Author: Kate McLaughlin

Type: Standalone

Genre: Young Adult, Family, Fiction

"This is how you survive. You sit the fuck down and give them the respect they deserve, and you make a promise to yourself that they didn't die for nothin. You get mad, and you keep going. " 

What Unbreakable Looks Like is a raw and heartbreaking story about human trafficking in the United States. Alexa, was trafficked into prostitution by Mitch (a friend of her mother and her father in law). As soon as he starts drugging her and using her she become Poppy, another flower to the batch of women and girls he has trafficked over the year. Poppy forgets what it is to be Alexa in order to survive, that is until she is rescued by the police and starts living with her aunt and her husband. 

The story is fast paced as Mitch continues to find her and we see Alexa navigate between sadness, grief and finding herself able to love both physically and emotionally. The point of the story is beautiful, the characters are there to entice the story and make you feel for the characters yet my main problem with this book was the writing. 

I feel bad for giving this book a low rating because I enjoyed the point of the story and the meaning behind it However, these books need to have more eloquent writing that is not so over the place and seems like a rant or journal entry of thoughts. The writing wasn't what I expected and if you place this story with all this meaning and add writing that is heartbreaking and raw you will get a fantastic popular story. What Unbreakable Looks Like has immature writing, hence you feel for the story and for the characters but the writing acts like a wall for you to really reach into the focus of the story. 

The story (because of the writing) had a very bad flow. Although the key events and characters are there, I just didn't find myself feeling. There has to be more books like these out there that speak about this issues that many don't know happen so easily, I just wish the writing could compare to the message this book leaves behind. 


-- 2 stars --