Rebel Town Reviews [OPEN]

You Can't Break Her (Years 2 - 6) - @TSTurcotte

You Can't Break Her (Years 2 - 6) by TSTurcotte

Reviewed by AmyMarieZ

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Overview: You Can't Break Her is one of the most powerful pieces of writing I've read in a long time. It's a nonfiction story depicting the childhood of the author. This is unfortunately not a happy story and shows in detail memories from the author's childhood as she recalls them. Readers are warned at the beginning that the nonfiction story contains:

• child abuse

• suggestive themes

• underage drinking

• language

• kidnapping

• drug abuse

• underage smoking

• sexual abuse

• teen pregnancy

• mental, physical and emotional abuse

• self-harm

The chapters I read for this review show segments of memories from the ages of two to six. The way the abuse and neglect the author experienced is shown in this story is absolutely heartbreaking, as well as infuriating. It is a spectacular piece of writing, and honestly made me think for a very long time, considering the situation not only the author of this story but many others as well have had to grow up in. Anyone that can handle reading something this brutally honest and harsh should read this story. I am in awe at how courageous the author is to be able to write about these sorts of experiences, both for herself and to share them with others who have experienced similar to know that they are not alone.

Grammar: While the grammar in You Can't Break Her is decent, it is perhaps the weakest point in such a strong piece. I pointed out individual grammar errors while reading, so this review will summarize the recurring mistakes that I noticed.

The most frequently recurring issue was with punctuation, specifically around dialog and conjunctions.

When dialog is followed by a dialog tag, a comma should be used after the dialog rather than a period, and the next word outside of the dialog should be lowercase. For example, in the following sentence, a dialog tag is used after the speech. Therefore, a comma should be used rather than a period, and the first word following the dialog should be lowercase:

INCORRECT: "We are home all day." She cheerfully proclaimed.

CORRECT: "We are home all day," she cheerfully proclaimed.

When an action comes before a piece of dialog but is not a direct tag, the action should be followed by a period, rather than a comma. For example:

INCORRECT: There was a silence while the person on the other end spoke, "Yeah, that's okay."

CORRECT: There was a silence while the person on the other end spoke, "Yeah, that's okay."

(Note: in this example, "spoke" is not considered a dialog tag because it does not refer to the person saying "Yeah, that's okay.")

When a dialog tag comes before the dialog, a comma is used after the dialog tag, but the first word of the dialog is still capitalized:

INCORRECT: She said, "that's okay."