Broken Bonds

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-17

Chapters 18-25

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Autonomy Within the Fated Mates Trope

In the beginning of Broken Bonds, Oli is abducted by a paramilitary TacTeam and forcibly returned to her Bonds, the five people that a blood test for magical compatibility has determined are her fated romantic and sexual matches. This part of the novel’s world building relies on the “fated mates” trope—a common feature of paranormal, science fiction, and fantasy romances. As a narrative device, it brings unlikely characters into close proximity with one another and encourages them to become involved, something they are unlikely to have done without magical interference. Bree is interested in the intersection of this trope and individual agency, asking how characters can shape their own destinies when they are fated to be with those whom they did not choose for themselves.

Broken Bonds presents a society that debates whether Bonds should be allowed autonomy. As Noakes, one of Oli’s captors, observes in Chapter 1, there are no laws that explicitly forbid Bonds from staying away from each other, but doing so transgresses the unspoken assumption that Bonds will complete their union—an action implied to increase the power of the group’s magical Gifts—by having sex with their Bonds. Oli is horrified to learn that many prominent leaders on the Council believe that she should be forced to sexually merge with her Bonds, which would constitute rape. Meanwhile, Sage’s situation with her Bond Riley and his Bonded Giovanna shows that those advocating for Oli to be forced are also trying to spare her Bonds from social stigma. Sage is a pariah because her Bond rejected her—something that could befall Oli’s Bonds as well, regardless of their clout and socioeconomic standing.

In fact, Oli is told that she must bond despite her unwillingness because of North’s political prominence. Noakes and others believe that since North is a powerful man, he deserves the magical power increase that comes from bonding with Oli—and that what North deserves is more important than Oli’s right to self-determination. Because Giovanna’s family is likewise important, Sage suffers the social consequences of being rejected by a Bond even more intensely. Bree thus uses the fated mates bond to condemn unequal power dynamics in her society and in the real world; in Broken Bonds, an individual’s right to autonomy seemingly stops when it interferes with the ability of the rich to increase their power.

The Value of Friendship

In the “reverse harem” romance subgenre, one central character (usually a female protagonist) has multiple love interests (majority or entirely male) without being asked to choose between them. Typically, each romantic interest connects to one of the central characters’ various psychological needs. In Broken Bonds, however, Oli’s central affective relationship is not with any of the men to whom she is mystically bonded. Instead, it is to her best friend, Sage, upending the stereotypical version of this trope.

Sage is the first person to be kind to Oli at Draven University; while Gabe, a classmate and one of Oli’s Bonds, allows Oli to be bullied and ridiculed—and bullies and ridicules her himself—Sage, who faces her own social ostracism, supports and defends Oli. The two women connect over their mutual unpopularity, thus forming a support system that counters their previous loneliness.

This relationship arises partly out of the novel’s use of the “bully romance” trope; because Oli cannot rely on her love interests for emotional support, she turns elsewhere. Yet the novel does not present friendship as important only in the absence of romantic relationships; Bree instead indicates that friendship is strong enough to generate loyalty that potentially surpasses that of romantic or sexual attachment.

Throughout the novel, Oli’s biggest fear is that the violent Resistance will find and recapture her; worried that her Bonds will be harmed in the process, Oli plans to flee them once more. As her friendship with Sage (and later Sawyer and Felix) grows, however, Oli decides that she cannot leave new friends behind when she flees the Resistance. Instead, she plans to bring them with her, even though this makes her escape far more challenging to orchestrate. Oli is frequently alarmed by how much she relies on her friendships, worried that she poses a danger to her friends because of her Gift and her ties to the Resistance. When this extends to Gabe and Atlas, she sees her growing affection for them as friendship, not romance. At the climax of the novel, moreover, Oli faces her fear of the Resistance to rescue Sage from their clutches. The novel thus presents friendships as the most important relationships, framing them as valuable enough to risk one’s life over.

The Subjectivity of Truth

Oli spends the novel keeping secrets from her Bonds. For example, she lets them think the worst of her rather than explaining her reasoning for fleeing them for years; when they assume that she ran out due to some selfish motive they cannot quite articulate, she does not correct them. As Oli grows closer to her Bonds, however—particularly Gryphon and Gabe—they realize that casual cruelty is not part of her personality. When they wonder anew about her true motivations for running, Oli, who fears sharing the truth of her dangerous Gift, refuses to answer, leading to further misunderstandings. The situation is complicated by Gryphon’s Gift, which allows him to tell whether someone is telling the truth.

When Oli tells Gryphon directly that she cannot bond with any of her Bonds, he knows that she isn’t lying but nevertheless rejects the validity of her claim: This “might be [her] truth, but it’s not [his]” (219). This layered response from someone with a magical lie-detection ability shows that truth is relative: Something can be true from one person’s perspective while being false to someone else. Truth is thus not necessarily synonymous with fact, but rather a piece of a character’s subjective framework. Allowing for multiple conflicting truths sets up the redemption of Oli’s cruel Bonds: Perhaps Oli’s understanding of their motives is also incorrect.

Even so, the novel does not imply that subjectivity means that all things are equally true—or that every bully character should be immediately forgiven. Oli’s Bonds, for example, are unilaterally wrong when they consider her choice to run selfish; readers know that Oli fled to protect them from the Resistance. However, they might be right in judging her actions as foolish. As Oli builds friendships, she learns that relying on others is a powerful aid to survival, so her decision to fight her battles alone was, in fact, rash.