"The Beauty of Broken" by Elisa Morgan is her personal story of coming from a broken family of origin and trying to create a perfect family once she was married and had children. As you might imagine, no family is perfect. Despite her best intentions and efforts, Elisa's family struggles with unplanned pregnancies, addiction, divorce and death.
I have mentioned in previous book reviews how I am drawn to personal stories that show people's weaknesses and struggles. If you are perfect, I can't relate to you AT ALL. While I have not been through any of the struggles Elisa writes about specifically, I can relate to the pressure to put on a happy front and hide your problems from the world.
Elisa writes honestly about the difficulties she experienced once her parents divorced. Elisa, her sister, mother and father all reacted to the divorce in different ways. Elisa describes these reactions in an emotionally vulnerable way, but without blaming anyone. This description helped me understand why creating a "perfect" marriage and family was so important to her. It is interesting to note that she was not trying to appear to be a perfect family- she truly wanted to create a perfect life for her husband and children.
Elisa quite openly shares the struggles her children went through and how it affected Elisa. While I don't agree with every parenting decision she and her husband made (specifically cutting off a child in an abusive relationship), I appreciate her explanation of how these decisions were made. As the CEO of MOPS at the time, I would assume having a high profile position like that added more pressure to Elisa to hide any flaws. I am glad she did not. This book is a concrete story of what we all know- that no family is perfect- even in the families that look, well, perfect.
This book was provided to me by Booksneeze at no charge in exchange for my review, however all opinions expressed are my own.
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