Breaking the Pattern is a gritty contemporary young adult series about three teens fighting to escape the cycles that shaped their families. Henry, Sandy, and Bobby face abuse, poverty, mental illness, youth crime, and impossible choices while trying to imagine lives different from the ones laid out for them.
Each book centres a different character, offering an intimate view of how family trauma and social pressure can pull young people toward danger—or push them to break away. These are compassionate, emotionally intense novels that look beyond labels and ask what happens before a troubled teen reaches the point everyone else sees.
Begin with Henry, Breaking the Pattern, then continue with Sandy and Bobby. Readers who value realistic YA fiction, complex family stories, and hopeful books that do not avoid hard subjects will find much to discuss here.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A heartwarming, sad, intense story that will keep you turning pages until the end… P.D. Workman has a wonderful gift
By the author of Tattooed Teardrops, winner of the Top Fiction Award, In the Margins Committee, 2016.
(Book #1) Everyone knew that he was a good guy; geeky, responsible, hard-working. Henry has had a lot to deal with in the past. Now, as he should be focusing on his schooling and preparing himself for the future, he is hindered by abuse, the challenge of raising his baby brother while dealing with his mother’s deep depressions, and the return of a ghost from the past Henry has tried his best to forget ...
(Book #2) Raised to a life of crime, Sandy is a teenage prostitute, junkie, and con artist. She always joked that her Da taught her a trade, that it hadn’t hurt her to be brought up like she was.
But things keep getting more complicated, more dangerous, and Sandy doesn't want to admit even to herself that she longs for an honest, normal life ...
(Book #3) It's better when she's happy.
Bobby is a geeky teen who is convinced that his new foster home is everything he has ever hoped for.
His foster mom Katya is so different than any he has ever had; but as her behavior becomes more and more unpredictable and disturbing, he comes to realize that both he and Katya’s daughter Zane are in trouble ...
By the author of Tattooed Teardrops, winner of the Top Fiction Award, In the Margins Committee, 2016, this poignant account of the lives of Henry, Sandy, and Bobby as they struggle to break free from the cycles of abuse, poverty, and mental illness that plague their families will touch your heart and challenge you to look at youth crime in another light ...
