Fracture by Megan Miranda

Fracture by Megan Miranda
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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.


Gasp. I loved this book. Get it, read it, do it now!

Er...okay, let me back it up. Fracture is the story of what a teenage girl faces after surviving a near-death experience that really should have killed her. And, oh yeah, there's some paranormal stuff too.

Delaney Maxwell fell through the ice at a local pond in the middle of winter and it was eleven minutes before she was rescued by her best guy friend Decker. The story begins with Delaney waking up in the hospital and realizing what she has been through. As the story continues, the reader experiences everything Delaney goes through as she transitions back into her regular life and discovers something unusual about herself...she is now 'pulled' toward people who are dying. Delaney struggles to understand this, and to decipher whether she feels drawn to these people because they are dying or if they are dying because she is drawn to them. She also feels pulled by a different sort of attraction...to Decker. There have been underlying feelings between the two for a while, and after Delaney's almost death, both teens struggle to come to terms with these awkward feelings. Along the way, Delaney tries to learn how her 'new brain' works, finds out who her real friends are, and meets another who suffers from the same unnerving condition. But is he trying to help her, or hurt her?

This story was amazing. I typically stick to all things paranormal, and the paranormal element here was light. This story was more about Delaney, Decker, and the other people, and not as much Delaney's new 'gift'. However, I was thoroughly entranced and impressed by new author Megan Miranda. Her writing style is smooth and real and I loved being inside Delaney's head. No part of the story was overdone. Despite the supernatural ability Delaney gains, Miranda still manages to keep the story fully realistic. I loved seeing how Delaney and Decker's relationship developed as the story went on and appreciated how believable the awkwardness was. It was exactly as one might expect real teenagers to act. I also loved how Miranda made me feel such a range of emotions when it came to another character, Troy. I felt pity, dislike, longing...and that was all in one chapter. Overall, Fracture is a must read this winter for paranormal and contemporary young adult fans (and perhaps even those who don't usually read young adult).

An advance copy of this book was provided was Book Divas.