“The human body’s a resilient thing. It heals with very little memory of what’s been done to it…The mind that gets twisted and broken.”
(a note here: I really want to put a comma after mind in that quote, so I do hope that gets fixed in editing)
Poppy was once known as Lex, and her childhood was less than ideal. So when she’s wooed by Mitch, a friend of her mother’s boyfriend, it’s with stars in her eyes that she follows him and finds herself trafficked and addicted to drugs. The life is horrible and it all seems hopeless, so when she finds herself rescued, it is her aunt who is waiting there, only Lex doesn’t know how she could go back to a “normal” life. She distrusts everyone, especially men, and she doesn’t trust her aunt’s husband at all. So it’s going to take a lot of support and care to find who she can be now that she’s out of that life.
I think Lex was one of the lucky ones because she had such an excellent support system. She had an understanding aunt and uncle, who would do anything to give her a future, and she had friends that understood her, to a degree and looked past what she thought of herself, to see the good in her. I think the bullying that she went through at school is sadly not unexpected. People mock what they don’t understand and kids can be so cruel.
The story could use a little bit of editing in a few areas, but outside of that, this was a compelling read. It’s relevant to our society today because trafficking is such a problem, and there are so many means in which people make it happen. The writing was easy to understand, the subject matter a tough one. Watching Lex finds her strength was uplifting, and the fact that she went on to help others was incredibly brave.
You can read my review on Amazon, Goodreads, and Bookbub. What Unbreakable Looks Like is available on Amazon for $9.99
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