Review: Notes to Self by Avery Sawyer

Author: Avery Sawyer

Title: Notes to Self

Publication: November 20, 2011

Age: Young Adult

Rating: 5 out of 5

Source: Author

Synopsis: 

Two climbed up. Two fell down. 

One woke up. 

In the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury, Robin Saunders has to relearn who she is and find out what happened the night everything changed.

Review: I liked this story, Robin has such a great voice and it made the journey so much more intriguing.Robin is trying to come to terms with the fact that her friend may never wake up from the coma, and she has this feeling that their is some piece of information that she is missing from the night of the fall. She also suffers from survivors guilt and struggles to cope with all the things happening around her. In an effort to remember even just the basic things such as hygiene, Robin begins to write notes to herself of things she likes or just particular memories. She is determined to go back to school, even though her head injury makes it difficult and that takes loads of courage especially when the students begin to tease and blame her for what happened that night. And at some point she has a moment where she wishes it was her instead of Emily in that bed, but sometimes things happen for a reason...but will Robin ever find out what happened that night? This is a very moving story, Robin is so well written that you can feel what she feels. It was interesting seeing Robin discover who she is through the notes and what that means for her life, family and friends. Overall, great read about self-discovery and friendship.

Review: Fracture by Megan Miranda

Miranda, Megan. Fracture.New York:Walker Childrens, 2012. 272pp. Ages 12up

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Received from Netgalley

 Fracture: the act or process of breaking or the state of being broken

                                                                    -Merriam-Webster Dictionary

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? 

Fracture grabs hold of your heart right from the beginning, and I enjoyed it. This book was so emotional, and it shows how one event can have a ripple effect on others lives. Delaney comes out the coma, different broken, fractured pieces of herself, no longer the Delaney that they once knew but the Delaney that is yet known. She is alive but wrong at least to her family, and even to herself she is changed from her life and death situation. She has these tremors that she realizes is death drawing her near, which sounds like some sort of seizure. Troy,was a scary character, he was so lost in his own grief and believed what he was doing was justified. Delaney's mother made me angry at times in how she dealt with the Delaney. However,  my favorite part of the book was the friendship between Decker and Delaney, it was true, heartwarming and very believable. Overall, this was an great read that will make you feel many emotions about love, loss, hope, friendship, death and life.

Favorite Quote: "Death is finite. Unless it's not. In which case it wasn't death in the first place. Just an absence of life."

Cover Review: Absolutely love it! I love reflections in photography.