Review : Fractured by Sarah Fine

Summary (from Goodreads) 

Title : Fractured (Guards of Shadowland #2)
Author : Sarah Fine
Publication Date : October 29th 2013
Publisher : Amazon Children's Publishing
Goodreads - Amazon - Barnes & Noble

In the week since Lela returned to Rhode Island as Captain of the Guard with Malachi as her second in command, local news has been dominated by chilling sightings of human-like creatures running on all fours. Lela knows there’s only one explanation: the Mazikin have arrived in the land of the living.

Needing to maintain the appearance of a normal life for her foster mother, her probation officer, and her classmates, Lela returns to Warwick High along with Malachi. At night they secretly hunt for the Mazikin nest. To assist, two new Guards from very different parts of the Shadowlands are assigned to Lela’s unit, including the bad boy Jim, who repeatedly challenges Lela's authority. Lela struggles to keep all her Guards on the right side of the law, but their mistakes come at a terrible cost.

As one painful revelation follows another and the Mazikin start targeting those closest to her, Lela finds herself more vulnerable than she’s ever been, wanting a future more than she ever has. With an enemy determined to separate soul from body, one question remains: how much is she willing to sacrifice to protect those she loves?

Personal Thoughts

I was a little bit worried about reading Fractured because after reading Sanctum it had some huge shoes to fill. So, I decided to wait until the final book came out to spare myself the heartbreak that was bound to happen. I'm both annoyed at myself and happy that I decided to wait to read Fractured because the cliffhanger in this one was horrible and basically ripped my heart out.

Another source of worry for me was the shift in the surroundings. Lela and Malachi are back in the human world in Fractured and I was a little nervous that there wouldn't be more world building. Obviously I was wrong. If you don't know this already, Sarah Fine is one talented author and she knows what she is doing. Even though we were in the real world, we still got to learn a lot more about the afterlife. Most of the anxiety and the tension in the book arose from the arrival of the Mazikin, the hellish creatures into the human world. The plot started off slow for certain, but there was this slow build up and once the action started, it was non-stop. Sarah Fine knows how to write some vivid and stunning action scenes. You can't help but be completely lost in the scenes when they happen. What's even better is that you feel like you are there, right next to Lela and Malachi, which is truly a rare feat in YA books. Of course, since I was feeling everything that these characters were going through, my emotional response was glaringly strong. Fine took me through an emotional rollercoaster with all the twists, revelations and sad moments in this. I thought I could finally breathe free at the end until she decided to destroy all my hopes (in a good way of course). The cliffhanger was definitely a brutal one for me and hit me right in the feels. That's how invested I am in this series.

Then there are the characters. Man, I loved how even though they were very well-developed in the first book, they continued to grow as individuals in this sequel. Lela has matured so much throughout and I loved seeing how fierce and badass she had become. Her role as Captain in Fractured gave her the confidence that she really needed. No longer is she that destroyed girl she was at the beginning of Sanctum. She faced her obstacles and even though she fell down a lot, she rose from every failure even stronger than before. Malachi continued to remain as swoony as he was in the first book. He did make me want to berate him for breaking his and Lela's heart in the book, but I understood where he was coming from and that boy was just too darn loveable to really be angry at. Even though there was a lot of heartbreak in Fractured when it came to the romance, the depth of Malachi and Lela's feelings for each other was crystal clear. It broke my heart to see my babies suffer, but I think this "mini-separation", made them fall harder for each other and of course I'm not complaining about that. Even with them not being a couple, the romance was filled with tenderness and really made me swoon. Theirs is a truly beautiful relationship. 

Remember what I said about being worried before reading Fractured? It was all for nothing as you can probably tell. I mentioned in my review for Sanctum that it was one of the strongest debuts I had ever read and now here in my review of Fractured I'll confirm that this is one of the best series out there and yes, that obviously means you HAVE to read it if you haven't yet.

Rating 

Cover : 4/5
Plot : 5/5
Characters : 5/5
Writing : 5/5