Fragments (review)

Chase is a walking mess. He's in therapy following a suicide attempt, and the voice that told him to take his life isn't finished with him. Fragmented memories of the car accident that claimed the lives of four of his friends come to him at odd moments; as the only survivor, he is haunted by survivor guilt, and maybe something more. His older brother comes and goes in random visits that Chase must keep secret from his parents, who have seemingly given up on their elder son. Plus he suffers from preacher's kid syndrome, where his parents are attuned to everyone's problems but his. He's surrounded on all sides by secrets, mostly those that he is keeping from himself, according to his therapist, who provides painfully obvious commentary on Chase's problems and progress. For those who've read around in young adult literature, there will be few surprises here; experienced readers will likely guess from the first reference to Chase's brother that he is either dead or never existed in the first place, and that the sinister secret surrounding a bachelor uncle living next door has something to do with sexual abuse. Those same experienced readers will certainly not need the therapist's explanatory summations of Chase's hang-ups and motivations, and they may find them intrusive and overplayed. None of that, however, stops this book from being readable. As the story races to its conclusion, readers will stagger under the weight of Chase's misplaced guilt, yell at him for repeating his mistake of choosing a mean girl over a nice one, fight the urge to give his insensitive parents a good slap, and bite their nails over Chase's nagging urge to end it all. With its guessable plot and it-all-makes-sense-now resolution, this is melodrama just the way many readers like it, with the chief pleasure being that you knew what was coming all along, but had to keep reading just to be sure you were right.