Fractured by Teri Terry
Genre: Dystopian
Published by: Orchard Books
Pages: 420
Format: Paperback
Series: Slated (#1)
Rating: ★★★
Where to Find: GoodReads | Amazon

‘Fractured’ was a totally wild read. Even though I read ‘Slated’ last year, the content was still burning in my memory. It was an excellent start to a series, and definitely one with a lot of scope for a sequel. ‘Fractured’ did not disappoint, neither did it follow the cliche of being worse than the first book! Hurrah!
In this book, we follow Kyla as she searched for answers about her past, present and future, with non stop action and lots of big reveals that made my jaw drop.

Plot and Pacing
I’d say that ‘Fractured’ progressed nicely. I guess that makes it sound bland, but there was always something happening, either a dream flashback or a character reveal or some other kind of secret discovery that always made me want to keep reading.
What I really enjoy about this series is the world. It’s not radically different from the one we live in now – something that’s interesting is that Teri Terry has given this world a date, 2050, so only 35 years in the future?! The biggest difference between now and then is the government and how they control the people. Girl vs Government is a classic sub-genre of dystopian fiction, and I’m pleasantly surprised that Kyla hasn’t gone at the Lorders all guns blazing after what happened to her. Hopefully, this will mean that the finale of the series will be as original as possible.

Characters
New characters were introduced as Kyla discovered her life before being Slated. But, it wasn’t necessarily the new characters I was interested in, more the different personalities Kyla developed. As we know from the first book, before Kyla was Slated, she was a little girl called Lucy, who loved her father and learnt to play chess. Kyla mourns the life she lost with her real family. But, even more interesting is the new personality, Rain, that developed in between Lucy’s disappearance and Kyla’s rebirth. Rain was a girl on the run, working for the AGT and fighting for social justice. I thought it was absolutely excellent it the Slating was explained and how the memories and flashbacks from the first book were finally solved. I felt an enormous amount of satisfaction.

As with a lot of the books I’ve read these days, I don’t know which characters I can trust. It seems that everyone has their own motives, and one minute they’re willing to help and the next minute they’re gunning you down. This was especially true of Dr Lysander, previously the main villain of ‘Slated’, turned trustworthy ally in ‘Fractured’. Character development is always something I look for, but Kyla seems so split between her personalities it was hard to judge whether she came out any better at the end of this book.

Romance?
None. Ben, the love interest of the first book, went missing after he cut off his Levo, (one of my fave aspects of the first book, now sadly abandoned in this one,) which meant that Kyla was trying to hunt him down. Not much was resolved on that front.

Overall, I’d give this book 3 stars. It’s only downfall was the slight repetitiveness. I felt that with some of the changing allegiances, things were going round in circles, but generally, this was a very impressive sequel. I will definitely be finishing the series!