Review of What Unbreakable Looks Like by Kate McLaughlin

 I received a copy of this title via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Lex was taken – trafficked - and now she’s Poppy. Kept in a hotel with other girls, her old life is a distant memory. But when the girls are rescued, she doesn’t quite know how to be Lex again.

After she moves in with her aunt and uncle, for the first time in a long time, she knows what it is to feel truly safe. Except, she doesn’t trust it. Doesn't trust her new home. Doesn’t trust her new friend. Doesn’t trust her new life. Instead she trusts what she shouldn’t because that's what feels right. She doesn’t deserve good things.

But when she is sexually assaulted by her so-called boyfriend and his friends, Lex is forced to reckon with what happened to her and that just because she is used to it, doesn’t mean it is okay. She’s thrust into the limelight and realizes she has the power to help others. But first she’ll have to confront the monsters of her past with the help of her family, friends, and a new love.

Kate McLaughlin’s What Unbreakable Looks Like is a gritty, ultimately hopeful novel about human trafficking through the lens of a girl who has escaped the life and learned to trust, not only others, but in herself.

My Review:

5 Stars

Lex has been through absolute hell. Trusting others has only gotten her deeper into the hell she calls her life. Nothing good has come from having faith and hope. It's only brought her more despair and desperation.

When suddenly life does change for her Lex has a hard time trusting that it will stay that way. She can't help but walk on glass and keep the walls up that have been put into place long ago. But when her past is thrust in front of her it's going to take a new kind of strength not to give in and return to the chains of despair that once encompassed her. 

A heart wrenching and anger inducing story of human trafficking and the after effects that the survivors have to endure. Those poor girls never stop suffering, no matter how brave they appear on the outside.