What Tears Us Apart

Leda hates the thought of returning to school. She does a Google search and finds a job titled Triumph Orphanage. The orphanage is located in Africa. Leda accepts the position. She gets an added bonus when she meets the man running the orphanage named Ita. Leda falls for Ita. However getting close to Ita means getting close to his friend, Chege.

I have never read anything by Deborah Cloyed. So this book is my first introduction to her work. I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the story and the lay of the land. I could picture the war torn area country of Kenya. However I was not feeling the relationship between Leda and Ita. Not so much anyways. Not a good thing when you are half way through the book wondering about their relationship and when it is really going to pick up and this was part of the main focus of the story. Correction, I did not feel the relationship so much during the first half of the book.

I can understand having your best friend’s back but not when that friend just bring trouble upon themselves and involving you. This is where I could not grasp the strong bond between Ita and Chege. Chege was mean. Beware as there is a rape scene involving Leda. It is a quick scene but still gruesome. Chege did turn out to be a pretty good guy in the end.

One thing that did drive me crazy about this book was the back and forth. The time change from past ad present was not as smooth as I would have liked it. I would just be getting into what was happening in the present/past and then it was switch for about a page or two and then switches again.