There's nothing like reading a sad book while listening to Beck's Sea Change (one of the most desolate break-up albums ever) to get you out of a bad funk. That probably sounds sarcastic, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart. There's something amazingly comforting in reading about someone who finds love as troubling as you do.
In Broken Faith main character Marika is so emotionally scarred and lonely she'll readily take up again with someone who has never shown her anything but abuse. Right from the start sadness tinges the novel as Marika leaves behind her devoted cat and a quiet, safe home for a horrible alternative to companionship.
Miraka first appears as a secondary character in Lois Cloarec Hart's Going Home as someone can't accept that the girl she likes doesn't feel the same. In the beginning you get a sense she's not the most emotionally centered person, but as the novel progresses and Terry (the girl she likes so much) has clearly moved on, Marika slowly begins to accept it and even helps Terry out (no strings attached nor with any expectations) when she sinks to some depths of her own and winds up too drunk to drive home one night. Mariska ends up taking care of her and discovering she is stronger than she thinks.
Now morely fleshed out in Broken Faith, with some strong back story thrown in for good measure, Marika becomes likable and easy to relate to with compassion, even empathy. It's easy to judge things from the outside, especially if you've never had a crush so strong it made you temporarily lose sight of everything important in your life.
I'm just settling in with this novel and since it's over 400 pages, it'll probably take me a while to get a sense of where it's going, but so far I like it and hope for the best for Marika. She may be fictional, but she has a good heart and only wants to find someone who wants what she has to give and (most importantly) love her back.
That's something a lot of us can probably relate to with relative ease.
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