Broken Things is a beautifully raw novel about a woman named Maggie Oliver who’s reeling from the loss of her husband and son after a traumatic accident. Left with little more than a lakeside cabin and a bucket of unresolved pain, she escapes her old life in San Francisco and holes up in the Sierra Nevadas. But this isn’t just a grief story. It’s a sharp, funny, sometimes eerie look at healing, memory, and rediscovering identity when everything else feels gone. The book swings between the very real, like Ambien-fueled breakdowns and late-night sobs, and the surreal, with dreamlike elements and mysterious happenings that might just be her imagination. Or maybe not.

I was genuinely surprised by how often I laughed while reading a novel so deeply rooted in trauma. Corso’s writing carries a dry, cutting wit that never feels forced, it’s a natural extension of Maggie’s voice. Her narration is filled with sharp observations and brutally honest reflections, often delivered with a kind of dark humor that perfectly balances the heaviness of her grief. One moment that stood out occurs during a storm, when she panics and thinks, “I’m not going to die alone at the hands of a cruel, cabin-smashing troll.” It’s absurd on the surface, yet completely relatable to anyone who’s ever spiraled into irrational fear late at night. This blend of levity and pain doesn’t undermine the story’s emotional weight; instead, it makes Maggie feel vividly real, like someone you know well enough to reach out to.

What really got under my skin, though, were the strange, almost ghostly twists. There’s a whole chunk where Maggie sleepwalks and finds furniture rearranged and the pilot light mysteriously lit, things she swears she didn’t do. Then there’s the discovery of a music box shaped like a cabin that feels like more than just a keepsake. These elements creep in slowly, and they’re not loud or gory, they’re unsettling in a quiet way. The mystery is never over-explained, which I loved. It left me with questions that lingered in the back of my mind long after I put the book down. Is it grief? Is it the house? Or is it something else entirely?

The real heart of the book, though, is Maggie’s slow, cautious return to life. Her relationship with her quirky neighbor Zach and his precocious daughter Mina adds so much warmth to the story. There is a moment when Mina simply asks Maggie, “Are you sad?” and the directness of that question is profoundly affecting. Kids don’t dance around grief the way adults do. That moment was simple, but so emotionally honest. I appreciated how Corso let Maggie be messy and weird and not always likable, she’s not some perfect, noble widow. She’s bitter, she’s sarcastic, she cries in her car. And that’s what makes her journey back to writing, and maybe even back to joy, so satisfying.

Broken Things made me feel a lot. It made me laugh. It made me uncomfortable. It made me think about my own griefs, the ones I’ve shared, and the ones I haven’t. I’d recommend this book to anyone who’s been through a loss, or who just loves character-driven fiction with a sharp voice and a touch of weird. It’s for fans of dark humor, haunted houses, and messy healing. It’s one of those stories I’m going to be thinking about for a long while.

Pages: 300 | ASIN : B0F6W5P5H3