This was my first novel by Jessica Sorensen, and I can say without a doubt that she knows how to use words to evoke some very strong emotions. In the case of Breaking Nova, it was mostly sadness, depression, anger, and helplessness. Watching two essentially good people slowly destroy themselves is never any fun. Nova Reed hasn't always been this blank shell that she is today. Less than a year ago, she was a somewhat quiet girl, on the outskirts of popular but still content teenage girl. Her father's death years earlier scareed her emotionally but she's still living and learning. Her lifelong friend turned into her lifelong love...or so she thought. When yet another tragedy changes everything, Nova immediately loses the will to keep going. She's living but barely, breathing without thinking, lacking passion and direction.Her summer back from college and her new friend lead her to meeting Quinton...a guy whose eyes mirror her own. Though Quinton's regrets are different than Nova's, they are no less tragic. Once the big man on campus, a guy with the world laid out before him, he is now just as hopeless and careless as Nova. He's so weighed down with the guilt from his past than he simply doesn't care to move past it; doesn't actually feel as if he deserves to.While I was rooting for both Nova and Quinton, I felt like this road to healing that Nova was on was just a little off. She begins to hang with the wrong crowd, partying too much, trying to lose herself in the oblivion of substances to take her mind off of life. Now, I'm not advocating drinking and drugs. But to make having a few beers out to be some terrible stepping stone to a worse you was going a bit far. Even smoking some pot...was this a push for some political agenda? Gateway drug? That's the feeling I got her, and I didn't really want the very obvious lecture. Stay away from junkies...okay, I can see that. Don't smoke pot or you'll end up a junkie yourself? Not so much.In case you haven't heard, this ends in a cliffhanger. I hate cliffies, but this kind really gets my goat. Because this one ends in such way that I was more depressed after I put this down than I was when I realized why Nova and Quinton were such sad, lonely characters.My verdict...The writing was fabulous, sometimes insightful, sometimes romantic (?), sometimes break down and cry sad. The story itself is one big book of emo depression. The epiphany was waaay too sudden for my taste. It goes from rock bottom to explosion of thoughtfulness within pages, and I felt that there was too little focus on the actual healing and too much focus on the rock bottom. Still, I can't see giving this less than four stars because I was glued to the pages for the entire book. I will definitely be reading Sorenson's other series now.ARC provided by Forever via NetGalley
