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| Broken for You | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephanie Kallos
Publisher: Grove Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $0.21
You Save: $13.79 (99%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (86 reviews)
Sales Rank: 17300
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 0802142109
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780802142108
ASIN: 0802142109
Publication Date: September 9, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
National best seller and Today show Book Club selection, Broken for You is the story of two women in self-imposed exile whose lives are transformed when their paths intersect. Stephanie Kallos's debut novel is a work of infinite charm, wit and heart. It is also a glorious homage to the beauty of broken things. When we meet septuagenarian Margaret Hughes, she is living alone in a mansion in Seattle with only a massive collection of valuable antiques for company. Enter Wanda Schultz, a young woman with a broken heart who has come west to search for her wayward boyfriend. Both women are guarding dark secrets and have spent many years building up protective armor against the outside world. As their tentative friendship evolves, the armor begins to fall away and Margaret opens her house to the younger woman. This launches a series of unanticipated events, leading Margaret to discover a way to redeem her cursed past, and Wanda to learn the true purpose of her cross-country journey. Both funny and heartbreaking, Broken for You is a testament to the saving graces of surrogate families and shows how far the tiniest repair jobs can go in righting the world's wrongs.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 81 more reviews...
 Beautiful. Memorable. October 28, 2008
I loved this book. Although not wholly realistic, I found the characters engaging and lovable. The story was so tenderly written it was sweet without being overly sacchrine. I could feel my heart aching during several particularly touching passages and there were a few that returned to read again and again.
 The Human Condition: Broken Shards October 16, 2008
In Broken for You Stephanie Kallos shows readers the human condition, a universe of broken pieces and flawed characters. She delves into the relationship between things, stuff reverberating with emotional baggage, and those who are responsible for the things. Her characters' universe contains repetitive behaviors and sinful baggage passed from one generation to another, lost love, isolation, and death. Kallos asks questions. How do we deal with the broken shards of the human condition? Is it possible to progress and heal?
When Kallos portrays three broken characters (Margaret, Wanda, and M.J. Michael), and brings them together, the reader gets answers to philosophic questions about life's meaning. But the reader has to work at it. The answers are not explicit. First the reader must look at pain, loss, and even death.
Margaret, an old lady, is the mother of Daniel, killed when he was a child, and the divorced ex-wife of Steven, who left after the death of their only son. Margaret lives alone in the same mansion she grew up in, but she is not alone because her home is inhabited by the ghosts of Daniel and her dead mother. They intrude on her consciousness daily, even hourly. The mansion also contains an immense catalogued collection of priceless porcelain acquired by her deceased collector-father to sell for profit. The collection had come from loot taken from victims of the Holocaust. Margaret did not sell the collection: her effort of atonement. She wanted no profit in the ill-gotten venture. But she still suffers pain from living with her sad legacy. She isolates herself and tries to honor the people behind the porcelain by cleaning and recognizing each piece, even talking to the inanimate objects. She is tied to her stuff. Clearly her life is broken: it is bound to the sins of her father, and the ghosts of Daniel and her mother. When she knows she is going to die she makes changes.
Wanda, who was abandoned as a child by her mother and father, is an equally broken character, young, looking for lost love, and looking for a home. She works as a stage manager, finding solace making order out of chaos behind the scenes of plays. But she cannot make order out of her own chaotic life. At night she scouts the city for Peter, her lost love. Because of her obsession with finding Peter she is unable to relate to Troy, a good man who truly loves her. When she rents a room in Margaret's mansion she begins to change.
M.J. Michael (Wanda's father) is looking for his lost love in the person of Gina, crazy wife and mother who had abandoned Wanda. He works in a bowling alley (he had met Gina in a bowling alley) hoping to see Gina among the bowlers. When he opens himself to the friendship of old carrot-topped Irma he begins to change.
Kallos fits Margaret, Wanda, M.J. and their supporting casts together like porcelain pieces of a mosaic. Her creative conclusion expresses community, atonement, healing, support and love. Individual lives connect to a larger picture. Loss remains. Death does not go away. What is Kallos' answer to the philosophic question about human life? I think it is that we are all broken, but when we accept our brokenness and reach out to others we create a new reality based in love.
One of the loveliest stories I have ever read. September 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of my favorite books of all. This book goes beyond storytelling and speaks deeply to the reader. I still pull it off my shelf to reread my favorite passages. This book has a lot of wisdom in it.
Not at all what I expected September 19, 2008
I loved this book. It kept coming up with more surprises. It veered one when when I expected it to go another way. It's heartwarming and being Jewish, I was pleasantly surprised and saddened by the nature of Margaret's collection. Definitely two thumbs up!
Worth trying to 'get into' August 6, 2008
After trying the 3rd time to read this book, I can honestly say it is worth the slow start. It took me a while to become vested, but after that I laughed, I cried and I am thankful I gave the book a 3rd chance -- in hindsight it is a shame it took 3 tries.
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