Fractures by Jason C. Joyner (Rise of the Annointed; #2)

Book Blurb:

The Anointed are back. Life hasn’t been the same since Alturas’s Launch Conference. There’s not much precedent on living a normal life when your best friends all are teenagers with secret superpowers. But with John Presbus as a spiritual guide and tech genius Ratchet to employ their gifts to the fullest, Demarcus, Lily, Harry, and Sarah Jane are enthusiastic about their potential to curb the spread of evil.
As it turns out, this superhero gig isn’t as simple as it seems in the movies. The four still have to contend with family struggles and blossoming romance, not to mention keeping up with schoolwork and friendships. At the same time, powerful forces are at work beyond their control.
When the pressure’s on, they’ll see that there’s the potential for light or darkness in any of them. It remains to be seen who will choose the light.

I received this book from the author for the purpose of this review. All comments and opinions are entirely my own.

Rayleigh’s Review:

Read Rayleigh’s Review of Book 1: Launch.

After my love for book one, Launch, I was so, so anxious to start Fractures and dive back into the world of The Anointed! And I think that’s why my emotions are so mixed and why this review is extremely difficult to write.

Because I really, REALLY loved the first book.

With Fractures though, I had a pretty difficult time finishing it, but I am very glad I did because the end made up a lot for the beginning. I loved the characters and their personalities and I love the continuation of the storyline that grew even more exciting and enthralling as it went; those things were fantastic!

However, there were a few aspects of the narration that really took me out of the story and almost felt like a parent using a story to get a point across? If that makes sense? For one, the teens seemed to narrate uncharacteristic things about themselves and each other in both conversation and their thoughts. And what I mean by that is: I could really, really tell when the author wanted to convey a message to the readers via the characters instead of just telling the story and allowing the readers to come to their own conclusions. For example, the teens often referred to their cell phones as “distractions” (3 times by the 2nd chapter…I counted) and teens just don’t do that. Nor do teens view social media as a breach in privacy or a threat of safety–those are parent thoughts. Even in the context of this superhero, secret identity story, the teens really shouldn’t have sounded like parents in how they refer to their own and their friends’ hobbies and lifestyles. Parents will likely love this book, but the audience that it’s written for may roll their eyes in many places because they hear it enough at home. And it wasn’t all the time, but usually in the slow parts of the story, when there wasn’t a lot going on, the narration took on a bit of a parental-sounding voice rather than continuing the story, so I found myself spacing out a lot during the first half of the book.

As I mentioned before, the last half of Fractures really made up for the slower bits and narration in the first half. It was really exciting, the characters were awesome, and of course the epic battle was one to remember. It just took me a lot longer to get engaged in this story than the first one and that’s why my rating is considerably lower for this sequel as compared to its predecessor. I do think it’s a great storyline and I love the concept of God-ordained superpowers on The Anointed, so I’m very torn about my opinion of the book, because on the one hand, it’s super awesome; but on the other, this one just wasn’t quite as perfect as Launch was.

So I give it 3 out of 5 stars, and though this one let me down just a little bit, I’m still invested enough in the teens and their story to want to follow this thing to the end!