I really truly tried to give this book a decent chance because the premise sounded so dang promising! Unfortunately, it was a giant miss for me. Not only was the formatting wonky and made it hard to read, but some of the choices just made me so irritated! First of all, it is the year of 2020, there is no reason why 1) Someone should be using the slur g*ypsy and 2) No one should EVER dress up as someone's culture for Halloween. That is racist AF and highly insulting. I thought we'd moved pass that. Unfortunately, that scene in the beginning left a horrid taste in my mouth and left me unable to enjoy any of the book.

Unfortunately this one fell short for me. I loved the premise and where this one could go. But it did remind me a bit of an episode if Friends where Chandler essentially has the exact same father. Was not bad but not my favorite.

I was disappointed by how this book ended up going, as I feel like the basic themes had a lot more promise than the true course of the plot and character dynamics and resolutions.

The mental health aspect was a huge theme that I think Francis explored pretty well throughout the novel, both in the MC and her mother's struggles with continuing with their lives, and it was really interesting to see how the excuses the MC kept making helped her better understand what happened with her mother so many years ago.

I love the idea of a beyond unconventional father being dropped into a familiar place that didn't have a lot of acceptance ready for him. But his character was exceptionally unlikeable. I think the development of the character, the immaturity and baffling extent to which he acted out for the first half of the novel, involved resolving too much in a way that was too easy.

I didn't like any of the other characters very much at all, either. A generalization, but their gaping flaws felt real, but no other part of them really did to me. It felt like they were nothing but their shortcomings, and redeeming qualities were negligible to nonexistent.

Still, I applaud the author for his work to bring a different set of circumstances to his characters and for tackling issues like suicide, acceptance, and small-mindedness.

My thanks to Netgalley and Inkyard Press for the ARC!

This book was such a quick read - I read it all in one day and I have not done that in such a long time. You are dropped right into the middle of the main character, Toby's, life. I was really into the book at the beginning, especially through the novels discussion on mental health. But the main part of the novel's plot, Toby's father, felt strange to me. I understood what Francis was going for (feeling like an outcast), but it started to lose me there after. If you replaced his main personality point with something else, the novel would have worked the same. (I am not sure if I am wording this correctly without sounding mean). I respect what Francis was going for; I think this is a really great novel for teens and I think it has an important message, despite my reservations for the novel.

3.5 stars

I appreciate that this novel handles the issue of suicide without romanticizing it (as various other contemporary YA novels do).

The main character experiences a great deal of family trauma: a mother who struggles with mental illness and completes suicide, a father who is absent, grandparents who appear to love her very much but are not excellent at communicating this (or at communicating about the central issues in her life), and her own experiences with mental illness. Readers get an in-depth perspective into the thoughts of a person with suicidal ideation, the experiences of those who survive a friend or family member's suicide, and the sense of isolation that a person may feel while appearing to be typical and even happy on the outside.

While I appreciate the way this issue is addressed, I really struggled with the portrayal of the main character's father, Arthur, who is gay, and who also has an international career as a vocal performer who wears traditionally women's clothing (both on stage and off, at times). The ancillary characters are described as conservative and religious, and the small town of Tilden is referred to in numerous ways as less than enlightened. In fact, Arthur explains that he had to leave the town to be himself, that Toby's mother was the only one there who accepted him for whom he really is, and that his own mother shut the door in his face when he returned for a visit. All of that noted, I'd have like to see some more modern language and thinking around Arthur's identity in the novel. He does gain some acceptance from the group at the end - as does his partner - but a lot of this falls into stereotypical tropes, and I found this element distracting from the greater purposes of the work.

I'll be recommending this one to students and colleagues as a strong representation of various aspects of suicide, but never without the caveat that the LGBTQ+ - related elements read as if they were articulated by a member of the Tilden community.

I received a free copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for a review. Thanks!

I honestly hate that I gave this book 3.5 stars. It definitely deserves a 4, but I’m personally giving it a 3.5 because I don’t quite think this book was my style, y’know? So, personally: 3.5 stars. Review wise: 4.


What I liked:

This book was SUCH a quick read for me! It took me maybe... 3 hours between bussing to work and reading during my breaks? I love that in a book and it worked quite well for this one. The story was fast paced, but not too fast that you wish it would slow down.

Partly the reason I may have read it so quick is because this book is heavy on the topic of suicide. Toby’s mother died of an intentional overdose, and Toby has her plans made from the very beginning of the book. As someone who has been there, in the very shoes of Toby and her mind, it’s triggering for me. I tend to inhale the details, but save them for later if you get what I mean? It keeps me from having to put the book down and have a breather.
The way this author writes about this topic is wonderful. It wasn’t overpowering or over-dramatized like a lot of other books and I loved that.
(There was One ((1)) dramatic part in the book, though, and it was the chapters in between Toby’s attempt and Toby waking up in the hospital. Turning the page only to be greeted by a blank one was SO GOOD.)

This book also covers the topics of homophobia and the way it harms and alienates people. Specifically, how bad homophobia was in the 90’s. (Spoiler alert, it was not good!)

I loved every chapter that was about Toby and her mother. They never felt like filler chapters to me and each one felt meaningful. They were all memories that meant something to Toby and I loved them. Her mother had so much spirit in her and in the way she spoke and loved her daughter that it made me feel sad every time the bad parts were mentioned.

I especially liked the way Toby found her was written. Her mother wasn’t okay in the head, and when people aren’t okay in the head they make plans and don’t think about what happens after them. (Sometimes they do, and they plan even more for the aftermath. But this is a case where they don’t.) And by god does Toby struggle with this. She carries it with her and reading the exchange between her and Henry where she finally cries over being the one who found her, at only 10 years old, had my eyes watery.

ON THE TOPIC OF HENRY! Henry, Henry, Henry. Henry Goodman. Anne T. Christ. My GOD what a legend. Absolutely iconic. Gay man who lives in Europe with his italian partner who is also his manager because he DOES FEMALE IMPERSONATIONS (Not Drag™️)? LOVE THAT. GOOD FOR HIM. And nearing the end of the book when you could finally see him sober up and face his daughter in a real light and communicate? It felt so genuine. He was trying.

But...


What I didn’t like:

Henry. Henry, Henry, Henr- you get the point.
Before the good parts with him? Where he actually speaks to Toby? I despised him. I hated every word he said and every action he made and it angered me. I completely understand that he was written to be a hated man but I couldn’t STAND him. The way he spoke around his daughter was appalling and I didn’t understand why she wasn’t more upset by this! “How about giving an old whore a light?” Okay, this line is frickin’ iconic but he’s practically naked as the day he was born when he says it and this is on the very first night he MEETS HIS DAUGHTER. HIS CHILD DAUGHTER. My dude! My guy! What the hell!

Okay that all probably doesn’t count because you’re meant to hate him, but there were points where I hated him so much that I kind’ve wanted to put my phone down and stop reading.

Next up, Toby and Trisha’s friendship. I don’t know why, but it felt so... bland to me? Like, I didn’t care about it at all. I really wish I did. I think the only moment I felt anything about them was when Trisha gifted the single egg to Toby while she was in the hospital. (I literally highlighted the part where Toby reads “Break in case of emergency” because I went “YEAH BUDDY THERES THE TITLE!”)

Every part with Mike in it was... eh, to me. It felt kind of gross in a way that I can’t explain and I don’t even understand. I liked the way he was written because he had so much hidden personality and you could pick apart new pieces with every new entrance. It was like an advent calendar almost which is a hilarious way of putting it. Yet, I still just felt like he was gross? The scene where he and Toby were at the cabin and tried to... have intercourse... just grossed me the hell out and I could barely read it. I DID highlight the gherkin pickle penis line though because I cackled at it and my coworkers thought I was crazy.


OVERALL, I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would, but personal preference about some parts left me wishing I could’ve liked it more than I did. It was an interesting read and definitely a unique story verses the rest of the YA genre. I would absolutely recommend you give this book a shot.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

Tory's life is screwed up. Her mom committed suicide when she was 10, and her dad has never been in the picture. she lives on her grandparent's dairy farm, and just broke up with her sort of boyfriend...her best friend's brother. But she has an escape plan...

This book was hard to read, because the depiction of depression and hopelessness is so accurate. As someone who has felt like Tory feels throughout this book, I really understood what she was going through emotionally. The heaviness, the weight, the feeling of everything and nothing all at once. It's a hard place to be.

I feel like the book has two parts: 1. Preparing to die and 2. Learning to live. They are twined together perfectly, and the journey is both heartbreaking and beautiful.

Break in Case of Emergency
by Brian Francis
Pub Date: 04 Feb 2020
Read courtesy of NetGalley.com

First, I don't get the title; although, I get what the author wanted me to get from the title. It just didn't work. Even the addition of Trisha's egg gift to Toby didn't make the title any more relevant. I almost feel like the title is the opposite of what the author intended.

Rural, conservative Canada... and a homophobic town. That's the setting. It was pretty one dimensional. I couldn't get past the characterizations and dialogue as stereotypical rather than as prose. The people in Toby's life are afraid to talk about everything: her mother's suicide, her father's abandonment, sex... They taught her to be humiliated by her parents. OK, I know that's how characterization occurs, but the turnaround time on the undoing of years of silence occurred quite quickly once Toby herself tries to commit suicide.

Toby's friendship with Trisha is seen from Toby's point-of-view, a skewed portrayal of a shallow, not-very-supportive long-time friend. Trisha seems to both protect and rip on Toby simultaneously; it feels superficial. And Trisha uses the phrase "bitch mom" when talking to Toby about Trisha's mother, but no where in the story does Mrs. Richardson get portrayed that way.

Suicide isn't meant to be logical, and the author doesn't make it so. That's a good thing. Toby's justifications for committing suicide herself make that lack of logic clear. The only reason she offered that gave me pause was by asserting that people (she) loved her mom more when she was dead than when she was alive. It struck home for me how people convince themselves that others would be better off without them. But other reasons given felt more like exaggerations of teen drama. I don't know enough about suicide to know the accuracy of the reasons or if it was just the writing that didn't work for me. On the other hand, having Toby later be made to actually think about herself as one day being old felt like a genuine response to make to someone who attempted suicide.

I was taken aback by how quickly Toby turned around from thinking how she could try to commit suicide again to thinking there might actually be hope. It seemed to occur in one afternoon. Not only that, but that one afternoon also swayed her grandmother Kay to accept Toby's father again after years of animosity. The time frame for this turnaround was not realistic. It detracted from Toby's believability as a character.

I wanted to like this book more than I did, but I don't. I'm not sure how useful it would be in a YA collection in a community where teen suicides occur, especially since the repair of this character's psyche occurred in the snap of a finger... the egg shell never got broken (a-ha! Maybe that's what the title meant? There was never a second emergency?)

This book didn't quite work for me. For starters, I was unsure why it was set in 1992 - was this intentional to show why it was so "scandalous" the father was a drag queen? I imagine there are many rural areas that this would still be taboo, so I didn't quite find the time jump necessary. I also think the main character's mental health was not adequately handled. She gets to this extreme point, and while it's discussed, I don't quite understand how she is just fine after. Like most parts of the book, plot lines just did not seem well developed and missed the mark.

I received a free copy of this book for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

Not what I would normally pick up, but was interested in reading it after listening to a webinar of upcoming books. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why I enjoyed it so much. Life is rough for Toby and she has a lot going on, but as you learn more about her you understand why she acts the way she does and really feel for her.

Thank you to the publishers for allowing me to read the arc, And congratulations to the author for getting his book published.

Trigger warnings for suicide death depression, homophobic, homophobia,Mentions of Suicide, alcoholism
When I first started reading this book it took me a while to get into it, but once I did it really hooked me. This is about a girl who has a bit of darkness in her life after finding her mother dead after a suicide when she was 10,She lives on a farm with her grandmother and grandfather.She has this idea mindset mentality that she is going to commit suicide she knows exactly how she's going to do it she's been stashing pills away , and she receives word that her father is coming back to the hometown he left so long ago.Everything changes from there.Seeing Toby meet her father, come to terms with her mother's day, and coming to terms With her on suicide attempt, it's very heavy.

There were multiple lines of dialog in this book that spoke to me on a personal level, as well as the familial level, the feelings that Toby feels for her father and this hurt and resentment, I have felt some of those same feelings. I liked this book a lot, I didn't rate it 5 stars because of how long it took for me to get into the book. Break in case of emergency is in an important book in the way it talks about suicide depression and learning how to deal with the feelings that you have.But there are also moments where the people she loves talks about how much it would hurt them if she died, and That part was especially hard because we know that it's not about them it's about the person committing the act.

Beautifully written, interesting subjects.

I liked this. It was a simple enough story to follow. Very current. Touches on important topics openly and honestly. The characters are charming and fun to know. There is emotion and trauma but everything is worth the story. Very much enjoyed.

Okay, I loved some parts but it is still not my cup of hazelnut latte.

This book has so many potentials with its intriguing story and remarkable character building. When I read the blurb, I clicked the request button and as soon as I saw it on my library shelf I high fived myself but again I missed the direction and hurt my eye so I resumed my reading while I was wearing an eye patch. Neighborhood kids made fun of me by giving me fake calls from agencies to cast me for new pirate movies ( My husband also bought me a parrot and as for his gesture I flipped the bird- literally and metaphorically )

Well, I was still excited to read this unconventional story but as soon as I started, I got a little suffocated by deadly feelings of Toby Goodman who thinks everybody will be happier if she isn’t in their life. She is raised by her grandparents, her mom took her own life and her father is out of the picture. She thinks she is worthless, useless and by killing herself she will make a big favor to everyone surrounded her. Her depressing thoughts turn into a spiral, kept repeating itself which makes me scream and urge to throw the books away from me.

But finally Toby meets with her dad- a very famous drag queen- which help her change so many harmful thought patterns about herself and her life perspective. Her interaction with her father brings out many revelations about the history of the family and complex relationships. She learns about the truths, her mother and father’s relationship, crucial parts of her mother’s life which gives the closure she needs and gets rid of her entire bottled up guilt feelings.

The message of the book was satisfying: Toby learns more about herself, growing up, discovering the thin line between life and death, consequences of the wrong choices, experiencing from her faults. And she finally achieves to see herself from other people’s eyes. She understands that the people surround her touch her life differently as like she contribute to their lives. She learns to make more friends, be open to the communication.

I liked the message of the book but depressing and repeating parts at the beginning broke my motivation a little bit and I wished it would be a father and daughter book. I liked their communication and it could be more intriguing, emotional story if we could see more about their growing relationship.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for sharing this promising ARC COPY with me in exchange my honest review.

This was a really great read! I really enjoyed reading this book, would definitely recommend. This is a good book for all ages.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

Toby's life is complicated. When she was ten her depressed mother killed herself and she found her. Now, years later living with her grandparents in a farm, Toby decides to die. She collects pills, she makes plans and her plans are stopped, for the time being, when her estranged father decided to come back in her life, for the first time. And he's gay, he's a female impersonator and he's weird, loud, drunk and rude the first time they meet. When their meeting goes downhill, Toby decides to kill herself, and only a prompt act from one of her friends (maybe boyfriend) saves her life, pushing her to continue living, to accept her father, to try to understand his reason and find her will to live.

I think the author did an outstanding job writing about Toby's mental health. Her feelings and emotions are dark and raw. She feels like a burden, she thinks people won't care if she dies, she's traumatized by her mother mental illness and her death and she's not able to see that people love her. Seeing her father for the first time disrupts her, already, precarious mental health. Arthur Turner is complex, loud, hurt. Friend and lover with Heather, Toby's mother, only the single time to conceive her, he was afraid to face his daugher, to come back to his city, a small and closed community, where his own parents refused and refuses him still. Only with his talent and the help of Bruno, his manager, lover, lighthouse, he's managing to understand the mess of his life. And, coming back means meeting his daughter, trying to create a relationship with her.
Toby's surrounded by people who loves her, her grandparents, her friend Trisha, Mike, the boy she broke up with because she didn't want to hurt, but who cares about her, her mother's friend Shirley. But, at the beginning of the book, she can't see it.
Set in a rural community, the reader is able to feel Toby's feelings. Her anger, her fears, her feeling useless, a burden and her attempted suicide is the event that shake her grandparents and friends' world, pushing them to recognize feelings and emotions they weren't ready to face and talk about, like Toby's mother suicide and how it felt for her to find her death. It was interesting reading about Toby and her father and how his feeling suffocated and misunderstood pushed him to get away from his cruel and distant parents and the whole city, where he felt hurt and hated, for his being gay.
It was understandable, seeing where she lives, reading about her being embarassed about her father and his job and how Arthur was absolutely different from how she imagined her father to be.

This book was an intense read, because the themes are not simple. It deals with suicide and attempted suicide, mental illness, depressions, dark thoughts and hopelessness, rejection. At the same time it talks about hope and healing, how, surrounded by people who cares about us, seeking help, one can feel better, can find some lighthouse in the darkness. And that's hopeful and an important message.

Published on LU'S BOOKS 11/12/2020

Pub Date 04 Feb 2020

This book is a hard read for me on a very personal level. But as much as I tend to shy away from books dealing with this subject something truly drew me in. I think this was a honest and real talk about depression and suicide.

But I do feel that it glossed over some things about that subject as well. And even though it's set in a small town in the early 90s I feel like on the one hand they did a good job on dealing with lgbt+ issues it presented but also stereotyped one of the characters as well. So I give it a 3.5 rounded up to four.

Thank you netgalley for providing me with an arc.