Book Review: Fracture by Megan Miranda

Fracture
by Megan Miranda


"If you had one day left to live, what would you do?" This is the ultimate question in a riveting first novel by Megan Miranda, which delves into some weighty issues: life, love, death and class ranking.

Seventeen-year-old Delaney Maxwell shouldn't be alive. She shouldn't be returning to school after missing just two weeks of classes for falling through the ice. She was underwater for 11 minutes. But despite having a brain scan that showed substantial brain damage, Delaney rushes back to competing for class valedictorian, to seeing her friends and to figuring out her relationship with long-time best friend Decker, who pulled her out of the frozen lake. Except that Delaney is far from normal. She can feel the pull of death now and is drawn to people who are dying. She believes she should be able to save them, the way she was saved by Decker. After her unsuccessful attempts, she shuts herself off from everyone who loves her. Then she meets Troy, who has also been in a coma and feels the pull of death, too. At first, Troy appears to hold the answers Delaney seeks. But his character becomes increasingly dark, and Delaney must choose between life and death, Decker and Troy.

The cold Maine climate perfectly sets the stage for Delaney's bitter struggle as she tries to find her new normal. This novel is a compelling page-turner, from the moment Delaney wakes up in her hospital bed, right through to the end, when Delaney returns to the frozen lake to confront her demons. --Lynn Becker, host of Book Talk, the monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI. First appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers 1/17/12, reprinted with permission.

Discover: A compulsively readable story about a girl who survives a drowning, and now feels the pull of death.

Lynn Becker

www.lynnbeckerbooks.com