Break to You

“shows the way juvenile detention centers can be overlooked in our present system of law enforcement, and the inmates, often from broken families, can be lost . . .”

Falsely accused and betrayed by a “friend,” Adriana finds herself at Compass Juvenile Detention Center. She is angry at life, her dysfunctional family, and the crappy circumstances that landed her in juvie. Not ready to trust anyone, she still must live with other girls, all of them trapped in a broken system that all too readily sees the inmates as trouble rather than as a diverse community of individuals. She realizes that:

“The faces around her range from vamipiric pale to pure cacao, with every shade in between. More brown faces than white—clearly this place isn’t a cross section of America, but more a cross section of who America kicks to the curb.”

It is only through her journal that Adriana is able to find any peace; it’s the one place she can be honest, and where she can feel her rage seep out of her and onto the page. When she is finally given the okay to keep her journal with her in lock-up, she finds the most private space possible in the library to write. Before she knows it, however, she is forced from her spot, accidentally leaving her journal behind.

Jon is a veteran of Compass, one of the boys who has been there the longest; he is part of the male contingent that makes up the other half of the detention center. His hopes are few, and the light at the end of the tunnel is dim, because he will soon be headed to the general prison population, when he turns 18 in just a few months. The center’s psychologist, Dr. Alvarado, is not someone Jon trusts, but there are a few adults who seem to care, even though that can be quick to change. Jon knows that:

“Here at Compass, there are actually some people who see you as a kid who made a mistake, but still a kid. There are some people who genuinely care about you and hope you have a future. But the moment they see you as a man instead of a kid, all that hope gets transferred down to someone younger.”

The day after Adriana loses her journal in the library, Jon finds it. This begins a back-and-forth between them, writing their hopes, their frustrations, and feelings. This living journal becomes a conduit through which they dare to dream, and through which they start to feel love, something to keep them going. They determine that they must meet, although the constraints of the detention center make it feel impossible. But they refuse to give up. Adriana thinks that even in the darkness of the center, where no one can trust anyone, and the world seems unforgiving, that:

“it feels like their meeting is destined to happen. As if all the doors will unlock themselves before them. Adriana knows that’s magical thinking. But so what? Maybe there are some kinds of magic in the world. Not Harry Potter wand-waving stuff, but common, everyday magical things that most people are too busy and too stressed to even notice.”

The days become about this question. How can they meet? They must decide who is worthy of their trust, and who is willing to take a risk to help them in this place where they feel forgotten and invisible.

The inmates and staff of Break to You are written as complex people. The authors paint a picture of Compass not as all bad or unrealistically hopeful; the reality is that the young prisoners are more than just their crimes. While the reader knows they are in Compass for a reason, not all of those reasons are spelled out. Instead, we get to know the teens as individuals who have a life outside of the detention center. They love people, they worry, they cry, they have health issues. All is not black and white, good or bad. The staff, in turn, for the most part are also seen as people with complex personalities; many hope for the best for the inmates, but they also know the world in which they work does not provide a high level of trust between the workers and the teens. 

Shusterman, Young, and Knowlden offer a world that shows the way juvenile detention centers can be overlooked in our present system of law enforcement, and the inmates, often from broken families, can be lost in the competing interests of those hired to care for them, their own families, or the State. The authors’ writing is creative and interesting, and smoothly transitions from Adriana’s point of view to Jon’s throughout the story, making for an enjoyable read.

Highly recommended.