This one was hard to rate. On one hand, it's a tough story about mental health issues. On the other, I felt like it lacked a lot of substance. I had a hard time connecting with the characters and setting.

Thank you for this arc copy of this book. It wasn't; my type of book but others may like it. I did enjoy the cover picture though.

Break in Case of an Emergency was tough and emotional to read but the pain was absolutely worth it. The book follows Toby and her struggles with a multitude of things—her grief, her mental health, her relationship with her father, her romantic and platonic attachments, etc. i found some of these plotlines more interesting than the others (ex. Toby’s relationship with her father) but I think that it was important to include everything so that we got a full picture of who Toby was. The writing was nice and the 90s time period was very atmospheric and nostalgic. This was beautiful!! Enough said!!

I have elected not to read and review this book due to time constraints. Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you so much @HarperCollins & @NetGalley for gifting me this eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased review (Release Date | 17 September 2019)

SYNOPSIS | Toby comes home from school to find that her mother has committed suicide & she is sent to live with her grandparents on a rural dairy farm. The timeline jumps forward to her teenage years & Toby's mental health is suffering so she is contemplating ending her life.

WHAT I LIKED:
- the basic themes of this story had a lot of promise (mental health, grieving & healing, survivorship & acceptance, family ties)

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- whilst I applaud the themes, the actual execution of the story just didn't really work for me
- any of the characters... I just didn't root for them & her father especially felt like he was portrayed as a villainous caricature
- this is set in the early 90s but even still there were multiple homophobic references that could be triggering
- the ending was just too good to be true. It all wrapped up too nicely.

DNF - Did not finish. I decided not to keep reading this young adult title. Thank you, publisher and NetGalley for the early title!

Although this book explores issues such as mental illness, suicide and family dysfunction, it does so with humor and sensitivity. After reading this novel I purchased it for my library and recommend it to my senior high students.

Thanks NetGalley for the preview!

Wow this book was heavier than I anticipated but so important. It was a well written book on suicide, loss, acceptance and mental illness. The dark thoughts and comments made the book hard to read but showed inside Toby's head in a real way. I think books like this are so important. I do feel like I don't know where Toby went after the story ended and I really wanted some closure to know she was safe.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I finished this book about a month ago and have been trying to collect my thoughts ever since. I had such high hopes going into this novel and left feeling disappointed.

This story is about Toby, a girl whose mother commits suicide so she has to live with her grandparents. Years pass and her father, who left before she was born, contacts her and says he is sorry but he is now ready to start a relationship and try to be the dad he couldn’t be before. Things don’t start great when he meets her for the first time at a family dinner and arrived wasted and acts a fool.

The whole family is also a bit put off by her dad, because he is a famous Drag Queen and this story is set in the 1990’s in a small town, where being gay and being a female impersonator was not as widely accepted as it is today. So the whole story is about coming to terms with her father being who he is and trying to forgive him for missing so much of Toby’s life.

I’m not entirely sure why this story didn’t work for me, I think it’s partly due to the fact they talked bad about her father and it rubbed me the wrong way sometimes and it made me sad, that this is what the world once was, and in some cases still is.

Overall an enjoyable read and I would read more from this author in the future and see if any future books make me feel a little more connected.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

Wow. BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY is... fantastic.

Yes, it's a heavy read. It deals with a lot of heavy, potentially triggering content: suicide, depression, feelings of parental abandonment. It's not the easiest read, content-wise.

But it's SO IMPORTANT, and SO relevant, and Francis executes the material in a realistic, mindful way.

The prose is well-written, the characters are unique and diverse, and the story is poignant and relevant. And the author's note -- DEFINITELY check that out. It's powerful, it's emotional, and it's something that I believe everyone, everywhere, should take the time to read.

Toby is a sympathetic and interesting main character. Her parents, Heather and Toby, were flawed but loveable. Honestly, I liked all the characters; it was a small cast, so the book felt intimate. Their backstory was as interesting as the main plot. I liked the overall message of recovery, though I wished Arthur alcoholism had been addressed.

While I liked aspects of the writing, sometimes the author would use a metaphor than immediately explain its meaning and relevance to the plot. I also wish the book provided more insight into Mike’s character. Additionally, filter words clutter the first person narration.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel.

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this title. I will review this title at a different date.

DNFed at 48%

I couldn't connect to anything happening in this story and just found it to be a bit of a drag. I'm sure there are plenty of people who will love this book, but I'm just not that person.

Break in Case of Emergency-

I received an advanced copy of Break in Case of Emergency through Netgalley, so that I could share my review with you!

Trigger Warnings: This book deals heavily with suicide and depression, along with feelings of parental abandonment.

Toby Goodman has not been given the easiest go at life. After her mother committed suicide, she was sent to live with her grandparents, because her father has had exactly no involvement in her life. Her grandparents love her, but aren’t able to understand the struggles she has with depression and her own suicidal thoughts. Toby is just about to take the final step, and end her life, when her grandparents get a phone call from her long missing father. Her curiosity towards him is fought by her desire to protect herself from a man who couldn’t even be bothered to attend her mother’s funeral. Toby soon finds out that her grandparents haven’t exactly told her everything about her father, though. He is a gay female impersonator, who travels across the world on tours, and who is coming here whether Toby wants him or not.

You can get your copy of Break in Case of Emergency now from HarperCollins!

Brian Francis has written a heartfelt and poignant novel that explores themes of identity, loss, and depression. Above all, this book also talks about recovery, and learning to accept yourself with all of the good and bad things that may have been in your past. This book is a rather heavy read emotionally, and should be given time and consideration before you begin to read Toby’s journey.

My Recommendation-
If you are looking for an extremely unique book dealing with hard-hitting emotional topics, Break in Case of Emergency could be a great pick for your next read! I couldn’t put this book down, because I was deeply worried about what the characters were going through and what would happen next!

I'm on a sad book kick lately, but I liked the hope this had. Toby hasn't had the easiest life growing up, her mother was schizophrenic and killed herself when Toby was young. She's never known her father and is tired of living, so she makes a plan to kill herself when her estranged father comes into her life. At first, it seems like meeting him isn't a good thing, he's irresponsible and mean, but as they get to know each other a bond forms.
Toby was a bit difficult for me to understand, but the hopelessness she felt was heartbreaking and I'm happy she came to realize she has a support system and could talk about her feelings. The dark thoughts made this a little tough to read, but it's important to have books like these and the light at the end of the tunnel made me smile.

I want to clarify, first off, that I gave this book three and a half stars, not three, but I can't do half stars in Wordpress.

Second, I did really enjoy my time reading this book, regardless of the heavier material. It is definitely enjoyable, as long as you are in the right mindset to read it. I found the characters in this book, especially Toby, to be lovable, if not greatly flawed.

This story is told from Toby's perspective and that influences the other characters quite a lot. This a fascinating perspective to read from because as Toby's attitude changes, the way we, as readers, see things changes as well. It's an interesting way to tell a story for sure.There were only a few things that I didn't like about this book. The first was Toby's character development. While it was clear in the author's note that Brian Francis had done his research, it didn't feel like that in the book. It felt like the author had no personal experience with mental health struggles and recovery. Toby's struggles seem real, but her character development around those struggles seems, at best, unrealistic.My second problem with this book was with Arthur, Toby's father. It is never really explained whether or not Arthur is an alcoholic, but when he is first introduced, you are led to this conclusion. Then Arthur behaves nothing like what you would think an alcoholic in his position would act. This question is never answered throughout the book. Arthur behaves how he behaves without telling Toby anything about his own mental health, and, in a book that centers heavily on mental health, I expected more than that. I would have personally liked a more concrete ending to the story as well, or maybe some sort of epilogue. I grew to love these very flawed characters and to not know what happens to them was a tad disappointing. Is this the best book out there if you are interested in mental health? No, probably not. It does not deal with recovery in the best way and it doesn't talk about self-care or seeking help from a professional at all. It does take place in the early 1990's so this does come with the time period in some ways, but I still felt like it wasn't the best way to deal with the situation. Overall, I gave this book three and half stars and enjoyed my time reading it, but I would definitely be cautious in recommending it. I think that the characters are definitely flawed and in some places completely unlikable, but that is realistic in life. Not everyone is going to be redeemed or likable. If you think you are in the right mindset to read this book then I would encourage you to try.

This book was very enjoyable!I loved it. I even teared up at the end, and I'm not one of those people who cry reading books. I would recommend this to anyone who reads young adult, new adult, contemporary. It was funny, touching, dealt with real problems that teens struggle with. That people struggle with. But still laugh out loud funny and very touching. I would definitely check out other reads from this author.

Break in Case of Emergency is one of those books that, regardless of your opinions on its execution, you have to acknowledge is vitally important for its willingness to openly address difficult social phenomena that society likes to sweep under the rug. It is a heavy read, but in a necessary way, not the maudlin sort of sob-story that is an inherent risk of writing about so many serious issues that teens face today.

Nowadays, authors, when writing for a younger audience, are not afraid to spill the truth. They won’t hide the inconveniences of life, instead, they will bring to light the worse possible things - bullying, the pressure to perform, anxiety over growing up, and try to show them as real as they are. This can help but also harm.

When reading something so affecting, I usually don’t even notice if the characters were well fleshed out, if the plot was interesting enough or whether the relationships between characters felt real, because neither of these things was the main focus of the story.

I will be honest at time here was just too much to try to grasp and it made the book lack in certain areas along with being quite slow at times.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

OK, this is a really depressing book. The focal point is suicide, so trigger warning. I'm not sure how I feel overall about the writing, but for being a story centered around something so traumatic and depressing, it was pretty good.