Book Review: Ruptured by Joanne Rossmassler Fritz

Publisher’s description

The sensitive, suspenseful story of a family coping with a life-changing tragedy, told in stunning verse.

Is it wrong to grieve for someone who is still alive?

Claire’s mom and dad don’t talk to each other much anymore. And they definitely don’t laugh or dance the way they used to. Their tense, stilted stand offs leave thirteen-year-old Claire, an only child, caught in the middle. So when the family takes their annual summer vacation, Claire sticks her nose in a book and hopes for the best. Maybe the sunshine and ocean breeze will fix what’s gone wrong.

But while the family is away, Claire’s mother has a ruptured brain aneurysm—right after she reveals a huge secret to Claire. Though she survives the rupture, it seems like she is an entirely different person. Claire has no idea if her mom meant what she said, or if she even remembers saying it. With the weight of her mom’s confession on her shoulders, Claire must navigate fear, grief, and prospects for recovery.

Will her mom ever be the same? Will her parents stay together? And if the answer to either question is yes, how will Claire learn to live with what she knows? This beautifully written novel speaks to kids’ fears and credits their strength, and stems from the author’s incredible experience surviving two ruptured aneurysms.

Amanda’s thoughts

Let me just say this: This book is lovely, well-written, moving, unique, and maybe not something I should have picked up to read in the days following one of my best friends having brain surgery. I had to skim over a lot of the details of medical procedures and equipment in the hospital because it was just too much right now. That said, were it not for upsetting medical details, I wouldn’t have skipped a word of these fantastic book.

RUPTURED follows 8th grade Claire’s life. She’s sitting at a restaurant with her mother when her mom has a massive headache and faints; she’s had a brain aneurysm rupture. What comes next is lots of uncertainty, fear, anger, and sadness as her mother spends time in the hospital. Claire is worried that her mom won’t survive the aneurysm, that she won’t ever be her “old” self again. Her mom is hallucinating, forgetting words, not remembering things. All totally normal given her situation, but terrifying to witness. Thankfully, Claire takes solace in her books (she’s an avid reader, with dreams of one day maybe being a librarian, and there are so many wonderful references to contemporary MG and YA titles) and her new connection with DeShawn, a boy she meets in the hospital as he’s visiting his own mother (also recovering from an aneurysm). At the library, she searches and searches for a book where a parent has something huge happens but lives. Those books are not easy to find, but Claire, who has always turned to books, needs to hope and reassurance that people can survive scary medical things.

While the bulk of the story is about her mother’s medical event and the aftermath, woven throughout is this thread of family. Claire feels like they pretend to be a happy family, when in reality her parents seem to have drifted so far apart. In fact, her mother confesses a secret to Claire right before her aneurysm, leaving Claire to carry the burden of this as she watches her parents interact in the days and weeks they’re in the hospital. She’s worried her mom doesn’t remember telling her the secret, she’s worried her mother will remember and will tell her dad, she’s worried that she alone currently knows this information. It’s a lot.

The book asks the important and hard question of if it’s wrong to grieve for someone who is still alive. The book fills the gap Claire was looking so hard to fill—a book where a parent has something huge and medically scary happen, but lives. Told in verse, this poignant story shows that terrifying things are survivable, and that even if someone seems like they may be changed forever, they are still there, and that feels like a miracle.

A note from the author after the story details her own experiences as a survivor of two aneurysms.

A really powerful read full of heart and (after many other emotions) hope. Don’t miss this one.

Review copy (ARC) courtesy of the publisher

ISBN-13: 9780823452330
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication date: 11/14/2023
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years

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