Review: What Unbreakable Looks Like

What Unbreakable Looks Like by Kate McLaughlin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Because of my personal and professional history, although I really wanted to read this book, reading this book was hard, triggering, yet ultimately rewarding. This is a book about overcoming, healing, and learning to rebuild your life despite your worst fears about yourself and what you "deserve."

Alexa is a young woman who was trafficked by Mitch, who is a friend of her "stepfather," Frank. She ends up in a grotesque motel, the China Flower, where she is called Poppy, to further her loss of self. And all of this is going on within 20 minutes of where she was raised, near Middletown, Connecticut. (Yes, young people are too often trafficked right near their homes. As McLaughlin points out, unlike a pill you sell once, a trafficked person is sold again and again and again. People turn a blind eye to these situations. They tell themselves they didn't really see what they saw, or they just don't want to get involved because it's not their problem.) Mitch spent a few months grooming her, and then, as anyone with experience with trafficked youth will know, he started exploiting her in every possible way. All of this was while Alexa's substance-abusing mother did nothing to help her. After a raid on the motel, Alexa and several girls who were trafficked with her enter a program for trafficked youth, trying to help them recover and reintegrate. Alexa's Aunt Krys and her husband Jamal take Alexa into their home and are committed to helping her reclaim her life. She also makes trustworthy friends in Elsa and Zack, two other teens who have dealt with traumas. But the road back is long, hard, and filled with difficulty. There's the ever-present fear that Mitch will try to get her back, the menace of Frank, the easy oblivion of drugs, the temptation to open that door in your mind and dissociate, and, of course, the cruelty of some of her peers.

This is a tough book. It's raw and emotional, but so well-written. It will make you cry, and it will make you angry. But it is so very worth your time. If it makes even one person report something that doesn't look right, to not turn a blind eye to a young person in suspicious or precarious circumstances, it will do much good.

The audiobook is beautifully narrated by Jesse Vilinsky.

If you ever see something you suspect is not right, you can contact the National Human Trafficking hotline at 1 (888) 373-7888 or visit the Polaris Project. You could, quite literally, save someone's life.



CW: rape, torture, substance abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, self-harm, suicidal ideation, murder


I received a digital review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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