Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith Book Analysis Essay

Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith is about a native girl who is trying to outlive normal high school years but bullying, racism, and relationship problems are interfering. In the book Hearts Unbroken, the characterization of the main character Louise adds to the book by giving her heart and personality. 

For example, Louise is a highly opinionated woman. She is involved in many school activities such as THE HIVE which is the schools’ newspaper and the schools’ films and productions team. During Lou’s senior year prom, her boyfriend's mom expressed her concerns about his brother marrying a native woman. Lou expressed her feelings to Cam her he disregarded them. As another native woman, Lou felt disrespected, so she broke up with Cam, through Email to focus the rest of her senior year on friends and her love for journalism. 

“Now that Rebecca and I were becoming friends, I regretted that (Smith 103).”  Due to preconceived ideas, Louise had about Rebecca she was being very judgemental towards Rebecca which shows us her mindset is set at a double standard.  Even though Lou was judging Rebecca she felt some sympathy towards her. Lou and Rebecca began working together on a segment in THE HIVE newspaper called “sexual bullying” Lou saw the newspaper as a way to get her opinions out and heard. There are many times throughout the novel where Lou shows strong character traits of being someone with strong leadership skills and the ability to express her thoughts and feelings clearly without causing too much friction or commotion.

Hearts Unbroken has several smaller characters and character traits to touch on, for example, Cam. Cam's character is portrayed as the “popular jock” that all the girls have a crush on but no one likes. “Ninety-eight percent of the time, Cam radiates charm. He’s the all-American golden boy, six foot five, with a promising football future. But that other two percent…(Smith, 9). Cam very clearly has two sides that he chooses to show, one being more pleasant than the other. Another character to evaluate is Cam’s mother. Cam's mother is not a significant character but she had a significant impact on the story's development. Ms. Ryan's character is given the stigma of being rich, snobby, also in a prejudice light. “‘Mom says Kickapoo sounds like a dog”(Smith,7). Making comments such as his one might have been light-hearted at the start but are racist. Racism and bullying are heavily mentioned topics in this book. 

Lou’s mother on the other hand was an intelligent woman, going to school for a master’s degree in Indigenous studies and teaching classes at the same time. Lou’s mom would look over papers and scholarship essays for Lousie and give her advice. 

Lou’s father was more chill and concerned for his native children's safety and well-being overall. Lou and her brother are both close to their dad. He keeps the energy light-hearted and happy. 

Joey is a character who grows in importance as the storyline progresses. Joey starts as a classmate and evolves into someone Lou can confide in, a boyfriend. Joey is kind and patient, liked by Lou’s family, and a much better alternative to Cam. Joey is a great character to watch for character development. He's not the main character but plays a very major and significant role.                                   

Characterization is more than the way a character behaves but is defined as “the creation or construction of a fictional character.” according to the Oxford dictionary. So by definition characterization has more than one factor. Some examples of characterization factors are the characters’ speech, how they talk, how they communicate, how they carry themselves. The characters’ thoughts, what they think versus how they react in certain situations. The character's effect on others, the character's physical actions, and physical appearance. 

Hearts Unbroken is written in first person from the perspective of Lousie, throughout the book you can see how she truly feels compared to what she says “I wanted to forgive Daniel, but I’d never been so pissed off in my whole life” (Smith, 230).  In this quote, Louise's internal conflict is displayed in a way where had the book been written from another point of view that would have been a piece of information we would have missed out on. 

In closing, to wrap up the main characterizations in the book Hearts Unbroken, there are Many different characters within the book with a wide range of traits and personalities but overall they come together to make a decent book.