Break on Through by Jill Murray

 ***/5

Although I could have probably used a glossary and some visuals, Murray’s first novel, Break on Through, had me at the first windmill (I don’t know exactly what that is, but I think it involves limbs whirling around in a disturbingly unanatomically correct manner).

If you are even just a little more street smart than I am, you’ll know that this book is about break dancing. It is told from the point of view of Nadine, a fifteen year old from Parkdale, a low income neighbourhood in Toronto. Her obsession is b-girling. That’s all she wants to do; that’s all she thinks about. Everything is going well: she’s got a crew, a boyfriend and a shot at the next Hogtown Showdown (the big break dancing competition).

Until her parents tell her she is moving to the suburbs and her world comes crashing down. She is only one of two black kids in the whole school. The teachers have already pigeonholed her as a troublemaker and she can’t seem to do anything right. Her boyfriend loses interest once she moves and she loses any contact with the breakdancing community, the only thing in her life that she really loves. There is no way she is going to realise her dream of competing in the showdown now. That is, until some unlikely allies come along…

Nadine is angry. She’s angry at her parents for moving, for getting pregnant, for misunderstanding. She’s angry at the suburbs, at her boyfriend and at her new school. She makes a lot of mistakes and acts in a way where you would like to give her a quick bop on the head. Murray conveys this anger beautifully, allowing the reader to empathise with, and care for Nadine while wanting her to just get over it already.

Although the book wraps up a bit too quickly, with a predictable last scene at the showdown and a sudden epiphany on Nadine’s part, Break on Through is compulsively readable.  I would recommend this book to aficionados of Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants or anybody looking for a coming of age story.

tags: break  on  through  jill  murray  

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