Hoped for more…
Genre: Y/A, Science Fiction, Adventure
No. of pages: 298
From Goodreads:
Kaitlyn and Erik are sent on a mission to track down Vance Dasvoik, a ruthless monster. His latest thrill—abducting and selling young women.
Vance’s current victim: Aaliyah, a seventeen-year-old who never imagined walking her brother home from school one evening would change her life forever.
The mission quickly turns personal for Kaitlyn when she finds Aaliyah beaten, her mind and soul fractured from abuse of the worst kind. Kaitlyn knows firsthand what it’s like to be haunted by the past and resolves to bring justice to the elusive Dasvoik.
I was hoping book two, ‘Fractured Innocence’ would redeem this series after my opinion on ‘Freak of Nature,’ the debut of this series, completely bombed. But unluckily, this was yet another lemon.
The beginning still had that annoying childish tone which did not gel well with Kaitlyn’s robotic nature, or the relationships and situations the novel started with. Not a good sign when I felt tense and squirmy with the first few pages…
Differing from the ‘Freak of Nature,’ this instalment followed the format of a dual P.O.V. between Kaitlyn and Aaliyah. The latter, a new character is the most realistic of all the cast, but still not someone I could readily identify with.
Kaitlyn is still hard to relate to, and her reactions/behavior is inconsistent with her cyborg condition, and frankly, annoying most of the time. Make up your mid Julia Crane, either she has emotions or she doesn’t, either she obeys commands or not – personality traits were all over the map and added to my confusion. Additionally, it was idiotic with Kaitlyn ignoring her superiors and risking another person’s fragile psyche – professionals are there for a reason, they know what works and what doesn’t. Her blatant disregard left me assuming Kaitlyn is a blunt instrument with little intelligence.
Interactions between Kaitlyn and Lucas (her love interest and overseeing technician) felt very one dimensional. He kept commenting on her looks as if that were the only important thing about her. His objectification, and her wondering if she is an object (being a company asset) left the story flat and superficial. Leading on from this, I did like the conundrum of whether Kaitlyn is alive, has rights, or is owned. But we never get any type of resolution, it’s only pondered.
Aaliyah’s narrative is the one saving grace, it was gritty, raw and heart-breaking. But as her story continued I became less interested. The choices she made, and some handling of the situation by the author left it feeling less and less authentic. But I highly commend the tackling of shocking and confronting material. A huge trigger warning for sensitive types – this book revolves around human trafficking, sexual abuse and rape. I personally found it to be vile and skipped over those parts. It’s not in my taste, but well written to have me feeling so disgusted.
Julia Crane should have done a little more research in maritime jargon to add authenticity as well, some of language was laughable. But ‘Fractured Innocence’ is another quick read, and not for everyone. I had so many problems with this it’s hard to give it a proper review without sounding like I’m completely flaming the book.
My copy had several typos and formatting errors, like it was not proofread properly. I feel embarrassed for Julia, issues like this are a red flag to me as far as quality goes.
Overall, a bit of an inconsistent, hot mess. Definitely great potential, and Julia Crane has the makings of a great writer, but ‘Fractured Innocence’ needs a few more drafts before I’d recommend it to anyone.
Overall feeling: Flatlined
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Casey Carlisle 