Saturday, January 14, 2012

Review: Fracture by Megan Miranda

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Fracture
Megan Miranda
Release date: January 17th, 2012
by Walker Books for Young Readers

Goodreads / Purchase

Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine
-despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she’s far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can’t control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she’s reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy’s motives aren’t quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?

*A copy was provided by Bloomsbury Publishing for review purposes*

Delaney died, for 11 minutes she was under freezing water. Miraculously, she survived but now she can sense when someone is going to die. This concept is definitely intriguing. It was even moreso for me, who hadn’t read the blurb in months and had no idea what I was getting into. Going in blind made Delaney’s ability as much a mystery to me as it was to her. It was a lot of fun simply going with the flow – not knowing more than the characters for once.

Delaney is a tough character to swallow. She can be a bit dramatic, sometimes cold. She reacts so suddenly to situations that a few times I thought I had missed something. I didn’t particularly understand her enough to say I liked her or disliked her. She’s just floating in between. I particularly didn’t like how she leads Decker on, but then gets mad at him for finding someone else. Or how she was deathly scared of Troy one minute (which, to me, seemed strange and sudden), but the next she was off to find him. What about this Troy? Him, I liked. He’s sexy, charming, confusing, fearsome : he’s one deep character. I loved the part that he played in the story. Even though his actions can be predictable, he has a strong, fierce personality that is perfect for the tone of the book. To put it bluntly – he’s a crazy mofo!

One thing that I have to applaud is the writing. I loved how the complexity of the human mind was depicted. It’s easy for the reader to see that Troy is mentally unhealthy. Whether it’s because of his ability or his coma, his mental state of mind is unsettling. His character is very intense: You can feel how unstable he is and fear him for it. Though not just Troy, the whole plot has a very “touch it and it may shatter” feel to it, mostly due to the deep, even sophisticated prose. The genre itself, however, is very obscure. Subplots encompass many genres without focusing on one in particular: Thriller, romance, paranormal, mystery. I felt disoriented by this, not being sure where the story was going to go next. I feel like the book had a lot more potential- if it was simply more focused. In the end, however, I can say that I truly did enjoy the book overall. I love mysteries, and this one was a fun, deep and disturbing story. I wish things ended more resolved, but all in all I was satisfied with it.

3 Hot Espressos
This review was part of the Fracture blog tour
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Canadian blogger, wife, mother, coffee lover, and sarcastic at heart! She has had a love for all things bookish since before Amazon and eReaders existed *le gasp*. You can also find her organizing tours and other fun things at Xpresso Book Tours.

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25 Responses to “Review: Fracture by Megan Miranda”

  1. YA Book Lover

    I remember seeing this a while back and thinking it sounds pretty good. Great review, characters that are hard to understand can be frustrating so thanks for the warning. Hopefully my library gets this book in so I can read it soon.

  2. Ashley

    I could see how mixing so many genres could make this read a little more complicated than it needs to be. I think a lot of writers right now are trying to fit in too much and too many popular YA elements. Thanks for the balanced review!

    I was actually hoping some other bloggers would be able to help me develop my TBR list by sharing their faves. If you’d like to contribute visit me here Glitter Lit

  3. Alexa

    I’m really curious as to how everything plays out, since I’ve been getting mixed reactions to the novel. It’s still on my TBR, so hopefully, I’ll find out how I feel about everything pretty darn soon.

  4. Amy

    I enjoyed this book, but I thought it could have been better too. My review goes up on Tuesday. I know a lot of people have really loved this book, and I wanted to, I just didn’t as much as most people have.

  5. Giselle

    Thanks everyone!

    @Melina: Lol yes as part of the tour. I can see how people would love this peculiar story-telling style. And obviously the majority did. I still enjoyed it but it didn’t blow my mind.

    @Amy: I’ll make sure to go have a look (though I’m on your blog pretty much daily! 🙂

    @Ashley: Oh I’ve got a few books I could add on your list. I’ll go have a look!

  6. Rebecca

    I have to say I do get why she got so scared of Troy with their incident at the hospital and him trying to catch her when she ran? He did get a bit… weirdly intense. And as the situation turned out I also kinda get why she’d seek him out… I think both she and Decker handled some thing quite badly as well.

    Great review! I agree it’s definitely an interesting read.

  7. Giselle

    Thnks ladies, you really should all definitely give it a try! I didn’t dislike it. It just didn’t have that wow factor for me. And some of the issues I had with it, others loved.

    @Rebecca: Yes that’s the part I found was sudden. Maybe I should read it again to understand better, but they were simply talking, he was trying to explain himself and she just bolted as if he was Micheal Myers. I was like What? Where you going? haha. But I agree that he was a strange dude. I just had no idea what we were supposed to think of him until the very end which is when I realized how effed up he really was. It’s definitely an interesting/different read.

  8. Dani @ Refracted Light

    Hmmm… I’m very intrigued by your thoughts. On the one hand I appreciate really complex psychological books, but your comments about the character development leaves me a little wary. However, Troy’s character is probably enough to keep this one on the must-read list. Thanks so much for the review! 🙂

  9. Candace

    Hmmm… I was planning on ordering this one because she’s doing a signing here with Marissa Meyer. I had seen all good reviews and figured it would definitely be worth the money. But now I really don’t HAVE any money and if I end up not loving it then it’s not really worth it. Hmmmm… I’m not sure if I should just try to get it from the library or something. No, I’ll probably buy it anyway (though with what money I’m not sure) but won’t get it personalized. Okay, sorry, I’m doing too much thinking right here on your review! I’m thankful to see one that’s not so glowing though, now I may have more realistic expectations.

  10. Angie @ Beneath the Jacket

    Fracture is one of my favorite books this year, so far (for the less than a month it’s been, haha!). It’s funny you mention that you weren’t a big fan of Delaney because I liked Delaney and found everyone else around her to be particularly frustrating. In fact, I remember going into work the next day and venting about that fact to my poor co-workers. 🙂 Well-written review, Giselle!

  11. JJ iReads

    I was definitely put off by Delaney’s cold and strange attitude. Like you, I was lost at times because she sort of seemed bipolar, ups and downs for no apparent reason. I enjoyed this book but it was 3 stars for me too because of Delaney. I didn’t like Troy much either.