Review: Breakable (#2, Contours of the Heart) by Tammara Webber

My Thoughts

Insightful, heart wrenching and gripping.
An intense look at Landon’s life leading up to his
transformation into Lucas, and a heartfelt and sexy
romance that made me fall in love with him all over again.

Synopsis

He was lost and alone. Then he found her.
And the future seemed more fragile than ever.

As a child, Landon Lucas Maxfield believed his life was perfect and looked forward to a future filled with promise — until tragedy tore his family apart and made him doubt everything he ever believed.

All he wanted was to leave the past behind. When he met Jacqueline Wallace, his desire to be everything she needed came so easy…

As easy as it could be for a man who learned that the soul is breakable and that everything you hoped for could be ripped away in a heartbeat.

My Review

I read Easy months before I began blogging and it was one of the first New Adult romances I fell in love with featuring a tattooed bad boy scarred and vulnerable as a result of his past. That story moved me then, made memorable with all its realness and broken pieces and gradual healing. So once I learned about Breakable, knowing I’d have the chance to get to know more about Landon and learn more about how Lucas experienced the events that transpired in Easy… well, I was all in. The story exceeded my expectations. The talented Tammara Webber encapsulated all the emotion, romance and heartbreak she infused into Easy, and then squeezed even more out of me, deeply feeling everything Landon felt as he made his way through a life defined by loss and abandonment. Landon was at the precipice of losing everything before he became the boy with the dark hair and the pierced lip that fell in love with a girl in a class… a girl he shouldn’t have gone after… a girl that he saved and in the end, gave him more than he ever thought possible.

“I wanted to make Landon disappear for good. Nonexist. I should have know it wouldn’t be that easy.”

Just like Easy, Breakable begins with a scene that’s incredibly powerful, setting the tone for what Landon would struggle through for so long. As we know, the brutal murder of his mother left indelible scars both externally and internally. It shaped who Landon became, who his father became, and how his life progressed after what happened. He began to fade from his own life. Withdrawing. Consumed by grief and guilt. Haunted by nightmares night after night. And perhaps worst of all, he had no one to help him get through it all.

The novel alternates between past and present and I was struck with just how different Landon and Lucas were. We see the gradual decline of Landon’s life… how he began to disengage, building a tough exterior on the outside that would keep others away. Bad thing, after sad thing, after disappointing thing kept pulling him under and it was completely heartbreaking to witness.

“Sometimes I stood on the weathered planks of Grandpa’s back porch and stared out of the water, wondering how long it would take to drown, and what it would feel like.”

And then we fast forward to Lucas. Focused Lucas. Hardworking Lucas. To me, it was intriguing to see that although Lucas seemingly had everything together, there was still a sense that he wasn’t fully living it. It seemed that his many jobs really masked the fact that he still struggled inside. He didn’t have too many friends, didn’t have a girlfriend, didn’t attend too many parties. He was watching life pass by until one girl caught his eye.

“It was a dull glow in the pit of my heart — that somehow this girl was meant to be mine. That I was meant to be hers.”

As the tutor in Dr. Heller’s class, Landon barely looked up from his homework or his sketching, but from the moment his eyes fell on Jackie, he couldn’t stop thinking of her. There was something about her easy smile, something magical about how her fingers played an invisible instrument during class, something alluring about her that wouldn’t let him go. He couldn’t understand how she was the girlfriend of that preppy frat guy and he definitely knew even beyond her relationship status, that she was an impossibility… a temptation he should immediately forget.

“I hadn’t let myself want anything so impossible in a very long time.”

We witness first hand how Lucas’ feelings grew over the course of weeks before he even met her, which was so intriguing to see. And we also experience that fateful night they finally did meet in the most horrific of circumstances, better understanding his rage and protectiveness. After that, the Landon/Lucas deception weaved together unintentionally and effortlessly. Lucas was struggling and the facade continued, and by then, his feelings were impossible to bury.

“I realized that I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone before. This desire had been building for weeks, and I’d left it unchecked, because she had a boyfriend, because she was a student in the class I tutored, because she was impossible, unattainable, a fantasy and nothing more.”

The story converges from both past and present dimensions, and I never imagined how deeply Lucas felt. He was so much more vulnerable than I thought. Years after the tragedy, he still battled with feelings of unworthiness and guilt. But with Jacqueline, he wanted to have hope, be better… be whole. It was crushing to see this boy who had survived more than anyone should in life, have this level of turmoil in his heart and in his thoughts.

“I wanted this girl, but I wasn’t going to fall in love with her. She deserved someone’s whole heart. She deserved someone honest and loyal. And I was not that man, no matter how much I wanted to be.”

The story is so much more than a POV book, the prologue really helps us see Lucas through an entirely different lens. It intensifies the scenes we’ve experienced in Easy and gives us even more goodness with an epilogue I loved. It’s easy to recall why this story was so special in the first place and now it’s even better with the final pieces in place. Lucas’ journey is incredibly striking and finding happiness and wholeness after what he’s endured, is nothing short of unforgettable. I can assure you that fans of Easy will embrace and love this book as much as the first!

Reading Order and Purchase Links

Click on the cover image to purchase from Amazon U.S.

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