The Girl in the Broken Mirror

By: Savita Kalhan
Location: FIC KAL
Genre: Contemporary Fiction 

"Harrowing and Touching" Bali Rai

A powerful moving gripping story which explores themes of family, loyalty and culture clash but is ultimately about hope and understanding.

Jay’s creative writing exercise is to write a fairy tale, ending ‘and they lived happily ever after’.

But the way her life is panning out she’s not sure it will ever reach that stage. Jay is an only child whose father died some years earlier. Her father believed that well educated girls could make successful independent lives. Now she has to move with her mother to her Aunt and Uncle’s house where her cousins live. Her aunt is a particular kind of Indian woman with super strict rules for girls and boys. Jay will be expected to have only Indian friends, if she has any at all. How can she see her school friends, Chloe and Matt?

But being forced to conform to conservative Indian customs and traditions is only the beginning of a nightmare for Jay. When her life implodes, how can she hide the shame and how will she find a way to keep going?

A gripping, contemporary story with strong female characters that explores the trauma of familial violence which teenage girls may face every day, whether as victims or bystanders.

Both harrowing and touching. The honesty here was very refreshing, and very hard-hitting, which is much needed. For me, the most engaging aspect was the way Jay's painfully deconstructed sense of self is rebuilt, culminating with the final, life-affirming scene. It was a wonderful way to end the story, and made me smile.
                —Bali Rai

This is an unflinching, multi-layered exposition of male privilege, male abuses of women, and the clash of cultures. With hard-hitting clarity it also shows how girls are silenced, made to feel ashamed of their bodies, ashamed of wrongs done to them. Ultimately this is poignant personal story of a girl’s fight to rebuild and re-connect with herself and those who love her after a truly harrowing experience
​                --Joanne Owen, LoveReading4Kids