Fragile: A Novel
by Lisa Unger
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Book Summary Information
Author: Lisa UngerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-08-03
ISBN: 0307393992
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Crown
Product features:
- Fiction
Book Reviews of Fragile: A Novel
Book Review: Top Ten Things That are Great About "Fragile"
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
When a young girl (Charlene) goes missing, inhabitants of a small New York town are forced to think back upon another young girl's disappearance many years before. That evenr created a fork in the road of life for many of the characters in "Fragile."
The description on the book jacket is a but misleading. It is not so much about a conflict between Maggie and Jones when their son's girlfriend goes missing. The jacket description would lead you to believe that Maggie must now prove their son's innocence. It's more about unraveling old old lies to find truth and, hopefully resolution.
As the town takes steps to find Charlene, some of the town's citizens also take steps to come to terms with what happened in the past.
Other reviewers have described the plot at great length, and done so very well, so I'll skip ahead to my Top Ten List of things that are great about Lisa Unger's book.
10. Great physical descriptions. You can feel the cold, smell the air, sense the dread that the town feels.
9. Some of the most dysfunctional families you'll ever meet (hopefully). Ever wonder if the sins of the father are visited upon the son? They certainly are in this town.
8. The characters are unique and compelling. No main character is left as a plain manila character. Each has quirks and a past. Jones, the detective and father of Ricky who is briefly considered a suspect, is closed off emotionally. He is the son of a dysfunctional childhood, yet the kid who always tried to "do good" anyway, and once failed spectacularly. There's his wife, Maggie, a therapist, who feels a compelling need to heal everyone and everything. There's Ricky, wannabe rebel, with the tattoo that's starting to show signs of infection and a 4.0 GPA. And there are the old classmates, each with a past and a current path to follow.
7. The complexities of the families and relationships and generations rivals that of a Russian novel. You might want to make a chart when you begin reading, because at times, you'll be seeing/meeting three generations within a town full of families, where the grandmother knows the players from all three generations, the parents know each other from high school, and now their kids know each other on different levels.
6. Small town life. Wow. Hard to imagine for city dwellers. But this is a town where almost everyone has always lived there, and thus they all share a history and a collective, as well as a divergent, memory. They all know each other, and always have. What happened 20 years ago has ripples that spread outward and intersect with events today. Imagine that you went to high school with the mother of your son's rebel girlfriend... and that your mother, who was the school principal, remembers every detention both of you ever endured. Then kick it up about 9 notches, and you have life in this town.
5. An insightful analysis of how one event, one fork in the road, can change a life forever. This, perhaps, is the theme of the book, and you are forced to wonder how each character's life would have differed had each made a different decision 20-some years earlier.
4. An interesting insight into a character who didn't necessarily commit the crime to which he confessed, yet took the punishment for what he knew he would do eventually. This character is an interesting parallel to Marshall, who comes from a deeply dysfunctional family and ends up committing crimes he never meant to commit as he struggles with the question of whether or not he is a good person, and whether we are defined by our mistakes. The book takes it further: do our mistakes then define what our lives become?
3. Unger ties up all her story threads, and there are plenty. But at the end, nothing has been forgotten, and nothing is left dangling, except in a good way.
2. There's redemption and reconciliation and closure. We all need some of that. You'll get some here.
1. An intriguing twisted trip back, probing memories and collecting reminiscences to put together a mystery in the past while solving a mystery in the present. There's nothing quite as involving as trying to solve an ancient mystery and working backwards. This one will keep you turning the pages.
A new writer for me to read! Yippee!
Summary of Fragile: A Novel
Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It?s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another?s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows?s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients? lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie?s intuitive gift proves useful to the case?and also dangerous.
Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene?s disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father.
?I know how a moment can spiral out of control,? Jones says to a shocked Maggie as he searches Rick?s room for incriminating evidence. ?How the consequences of one careless action can cost you everything.?
As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene?s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret?one that could destroy everything she holds dear. This thrilling novel about one community?s intricate yet fragile bonds will leave readers asking, How well do I know the people I love? and How far would I go to protect them?
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