heavy on the characters and the drama. we'll take it.

I would like to start out by saying, I DID enjoy reading Fragile by Lisa Unger. Now, let me be real here for a moment. You can have a fabulous idea for a book, a great setting and a great conflict, but you can mess with it a bit by including too many MAIN characters. Even if every character is beautifully created and connected, with a perfect place in the story - having eleven of them is too much.

We have Maggie and Jones, husband and wife and their son Ricky. Ricky's dating Cheyenne who is the daughter of Melody whom Jones has a past with (not what you think). Then we have Elizabeth, Maggie's mother who is the former principal of Hallows High - where all three parents had attended. Now enter Marshall, crazy teenager from a bad home. His dad Travis just got out of jail, is a terrible guy that you will undoubtedly hate and also shares the same past with Jones and Melody. Maggie is a therapist and has been helping Marshall through his issues. Marshall's grandfather is the former chief of police - Jones is a head detective, and Travis had his badge taken away for having one too many DUI's. They are all connected because they have all known each other for years, now their children are all connected for the same reason. There are even more key characters that I haven't included. A bit much, eh?

Now on to our story....Cheyenne has a fight with Melody and goes missing. The adults remember a time when they were in high school when a girl got into a fight with her mother and went missing. That girl, Sarah wound up dead. Everyone's all freaked out - the teenagers especially. Surprisingly it's the parents and grandparents that are keeping all of the secrets. When people start getting shot, that's when the secrets start slipping out.

It's a good story line, not as predictable as you might think - which is fun because GOOD mysteries should keep you guessing until the very end. Nicely done Unger, nicely done.