Fracture by Megan Miranda

Published January 17, 2012 by Walker Childrens
5 Stars
DAC 2012

Goodreads Review
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?

For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death.

Review:  Fracture was a great book for me.  I had been in a reading slump for a couple of weeks and this was the perfect book to draw me out.  This book was so well written, I just had to keep reading to find out what happened next!  Also, Fracture incorporates my favorite musical, Les Miserables, so it automatically gets about a million stars for that.

The mystery aspects of Fracture were really well done.  The pacing was excellent.  Facts were revealed at a good pace that kept me guessing but not frustrated.  Everything in this story adds to the mystery.  Even with the romance, the book never strayed from the main genre.  Speaking of the romance, I really enjoyed that too.  Even though there were some moments where I was yelling "just talk to each other!  Stop being so stupid!" I really cared about Decker and Delaney.  But man were they stupid sometimes!  

One thing about Fracture that I really appreciated was the fact that while Delaney's abilities were presented in a paranormal way, it never actually became a paranormal book.  There were scientific explanations for everything that happened and I found that to be very refreshing.  I kind of wish that there  was a little more explanation about what actually causes her abilities (not just something weird in her brain), but it's not a huge deal.  Not knowing adds to the suspense, it's just that my science-y mind would like to know.   


Overall Fracture is an excellent mystery that, while short, is perfectly paced and will keep you guessing.  Fracture is a stellar debut and I recommend it for anyone looking for a spooky mystery with a great twist and a very well thought out ending.