Mystery

I originally read this back in 2020, and to be fair, I didn't remember much, so I decided to reread it again. It's been a while since I was able to finish a book in a day, but I could not put this down.

⚠️ there are some triggers in this book. If you suffer from anxiety or depression I do not recommend this book ⚠️ suicide TW ⚠️

As someone who deals with depression and anxiety, I feel like I could relate on certain levels.

Delaney suffers from a traumatic experience that almost ended her life, but by some miracle, she survived. She doesn't understand why she was granted this gift of a second chance at life while others weren't. She sees death everywhere and feels it.

What I got out of reading this is that sometimes in life We go through something so difficult that even though we are ok, our mind doesn't quite get the memo. We can rationalize all we want, However
The depression and anxiety truly get such a tight grip of us that we feel like we can't breathe. It's best summarized in Decker's (Delaney's best friend since childhood) point of view. He asks, "Is this how it feels to drown? Like the world is folding in on you? Like there's nowhere left to go but some place inside?"

"And then I understood: the worst part about drowning is the undying hope that maybe, just maybe, you're not."

It's a valuable lesson to learn that even though we are not immortal and at some point we will all die, it's best to enjoy the moments we get, tell the ones we love them while we have them.. look up at the sky and appreciate the blue skies and fluffy clouds.

A lot of us feel like we are drowning inside but forget that we can just as easily grasp for air, and we will be just fine.

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I felt, I cried, I grasped ❤️ ( )

Dying is nothing like they say it will be. It's not peaceful and painless; it hurts and is scary as hell. But once a person is dead they are supposed to stay dead, there is no coming back after 11 minutes of death. So how then did she survive? There is no evidence of the brain injury she should have sustained being so long without oxygen, there is no evidence of anything being wrong with her, at least none that will show up on any tests. But she is different, and there is something wrong with her.

Waking from a coma she should never have lived through, everything has changed. No one understands what's she's been through, what she's still going through, no one that is but Troy. Attractive, mysterious and a little bit dangerous, Troy knows all too well what it is she is going through having been through something similar himself. But the secrets he is keeping are more then just dangerous, if she's not careful they just may be the death of her.

Fracture is part thriller, part supernatural and part romance rolled into a tale of family, friendship and death. As relationships are tested, trust is betrayed and hearts are broken, from the moment she fell through the ice and felt her life slip away her life has been irrevocably fractured. And if she is to begin to put the pieces of her life back together again she is going to have to want to live, and fight to stay alive. ( )

Delaney and her friend Decker are walking across an iced over lake when the ice cracks under Delaney's feet. She falls in and is under for 11 minutes. By the time Decker and a few other friends manage to drag her out, Delaney is technically dead. Even if she were to come out of her coma, she would have severe brain damage.

But she does come out of her coma, and despite some headaches, a weird pulling sensation in her mind, and hands that occasionally shake, she seems fine. But she's not. She finds herself looking at the people around her differently, and she eventually learns what that pulling sensation is: she can feel when someone is about to die.

This is another one of the ARCs that I picked up at a conference years ago and never got around to reading. It is apparently Book 1 of a duology, which explains why a few story threads are never completely resolved but, honestly, it felt like all it would have taken was a few extra chapters to wrap everything up. I have no idea why a second book exists and I don't have any plans to read it.

Fracture's initial setup was pretty good: Delaney falling into the water, waking up at the hospital, finding out that no one can explain why she seems fine other than some broken ribs from CPR, and gradually realizing that something isn't quite right. But after that this book became excruciating. Although I called Decker and the others at the lake Delaney's "friends" in my description, they didn't really feel like it. I know the town was supposed to be pretty small, but surely there were other teens around? Couldn't they have made other friends, people they actually liked more?

Delaney came across as emotionally removed from everybody, which I suppose made sense considering what had just happened to her, but it sounded like she hadn't liked a lot of her supposed "friends" even before the accident, except maybe Decker (her childhood friend and semi-secret crush) and Janna (who she got along with, even though they were big academic rivals). However, her relationship with Decker was really messed up. They seemed to have a pattern of hurting each other and then maybe talking about it a bit before never talking about it again so that they could pretend everything was fine. It wasn't the slightest bit fun to read about.

In the second half of the book, I kept wondering why no one in Delaney's family thought to talk to a therapist (money? but no one even brought it up enough to start looking into the cost). Delaney kept saying things to people that sounded suicidal - she showed evidence of survivor guilt and talked about how she wasn't even human anymore. And then there was that incident with the one neighbor earlier in the book, which her parents thought was evidence that Delaney might be a danger to others (and which they dealt with by forcibly medicating her, or so they thought). Delaney's mom wasn't any better. Considering her family history, she probably should have talked to a therapist years before this book started, and the stuff with Delaney just broke her. It got to the point where I was worried every time Delaney went home and wasn't immediately able to find her mom.

This was a short book and should have been a pretty quick read, but by the end it felt like a chore. I'm glad I'm done with it and, like I said, I have no intention of reading the second book, even though this one didn't quite resolve everything. I really don't need to know just how much more horrible things are going to get between Delaney and Janna, and I'm not interested in seeing an angsty romantic relationship somehow happen between Delaney and Decker.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

What impressed me most about Fracture, right off the bat, was the attention to detail. The way that Megan Miranda portrays Delaney's struggle to fit back into her old existence is done beautifully. I didn't expect Delaney to be able to just merrily skip back into her own life, and I was happy to see that wasn't the case. She is hurting, she is lost, and she feels the difference in the way people treat her now that she is a "miracle". For Delaney, it isn't just the unknown of the ability that she's been given. It's much more than that. All she wants is normalcy. The life that she once had. In Delaney's case, she now knows that ignorance is in fact bliss.

The story takes off at a speedy pace from the time Delaney awakens, and the reader is treated to some very interesting character interactions. Delaney has to put her life back together with Decker, her best friend. She has to figure out how to fit back into her life with her parents who treat her like something breakable. Worse yet, this new ability has attracted a dark and sinister boy named Troy. Watching her navigate the twists and turns that this new lifestyle throws at her made Fracture a lot of fun to read. Questions about euthanasia, and life choices also show up here and really make you think.

As much as I loved the writing though, what fell short for me was Delaney's character. I didn't love her, or hate her, but rather felt kind of blandly about her whole persona. There were times in the story where she was extremely over dramatic. Then others where it almost felt like she was bordering on manic. Let's be honest, Delaney has been through one hell of an experience. I can give her a lot of wiggle room mentally for that. Even still, her personality bordered on whiny and hypocritical a lot, which was tough for me to read. I loved her story, I just didn't particularly love her.

I can honestly say that, as a whole, Fracture is a very well written and intriguing story. I know without a doubt that there are tons of readers out there who will wholeheartedly love Delaney's character, and that is why I still 100% recommend this book! I am but one reader in a sea of many. If you read Fracture for no other reason, read it for the fact that it blends two very different story types into one amazing book. Delaney's story isn't the happiest one, but it is well worth your time.
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