Fracture by Megan Miranda

January 17th, 2012, Walker & Company
272 Pages, Advanced Reader Copy
Won from Author via Jessica @ TotalBookaholic
Young Adult Fiction

By the time Delaney Maxwell was pulled from a Maine lake’s icy waters by her best friend, Decker Phillips, her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead.

But somehow Delaney survived—despite the brain scans that show irreparable damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be fine, but she knows she’s far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can’t control or explain, Delaney now finds herself drawn to the dying, and when she meets Troy Varga, a boy who recently emerged from a coma with the same abilities, she is relieved to share this strange new existence. Unsure if her altered brain is predicting death or causing it, Delaney must figure out if their gift is a miracle, a freak of nature—or something else much more frightening…

Memorable Quote:

“You can’t change that.  I mean now. If this was it. What would you do today?”

Opinion:

What would you do if you could sense when people were about to die? Fracture gives us an idea of how a young teenage girl might respond to gaining that ability.  It forced me to ask the question of myself as well. We all know when people are sick or old that it’s a possibility they might die - but in today’s society I think death is often ignored or glossed over.  I don’t think a lot of us really think much about it at all.  Is that sad? Does that make us insensitive?

Delaney Maxwell gets trapped under the ice for 11 minutes – everyone expects that she would have died – or not come out of her coma.  Miraculously, she wakes up and appears as if she hasn’t suffered any outwardly noticeable effects from the accident, other than some rather strange brain scans– but what she discovers is she does have side effects…the uncanny ability to sense when someone is going die.

As the reader you see how she struggles to cope with what has happened to her, what makes her special? Why did she survive, and how what happened to her has effected those that care about her.  The relationship building in this book is stellar.  The interactions between her, her parents and her best friend Decker really made me feel their connections.  She tries to determine what this ability means and if she is meant to do something with it.  That is definitely an interesting ride, makes you wonder if you would do the same sort of things.

Though there are some romantic elements in this book, heck I don’t think there are many YA books I’ve read that don’t.  The great thing though is I didn’t feel like it overwhelmed the story at all.  The character struggles seem to be very honest portrayals of how teenagers might react when there are strong emotional attachments involved.  I do have to say one thing – I often got very aggravated with the way people wouldn’t share those feelings with each other, only because I’m one of those people that always speaks my mind and tells others what I’m thinking and feeling.  With that in mind, it is hard for me to understand when others don’t.  I’ve always thought there would be so much less stress if more people would.

I want so much to comment on some of the things that took place in the book but I’ll hold my tongue because I hate reading reviews only to find them rife with spoilers.  So just read it!

Rating: 4/5

Pabkins

Countess of Crazy, Insane babbler, Giver of the Evil Eye, Walking Hazard Zone, Maker of Monsters, but above all Lover of a Zombie and those things that are creepy crawly.  Step in to my library my pretties…

Categories: 4 Stars, Miranda, Pabkins, Review, Wicked Reads, Young Adult