Fragile by Lisa Unger
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Title: Fragile
Author: Lisa Unger
Narrator: Nancy Linari
Unabridged Length: 11h 34m
Published by: Random House Audio, August 10, 2010
Genre: Mystery & Thriller; Modern Detective

Rating: ✮✮

Summary:
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 Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn.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 listeners asking, How well do I know the people I love? And how far would I go to protect them?

Review:
I listened to this on audio and it wasn't my favorite story. I seemed to have a really hard allowing the story to grasp my attention.

As for the story, I had a really hard time following which part of the story I was actually listening to due to so many different storylines, throughout a variety of time frames. I sometimes couldn't recognize whether the story was present time or from the past because it randomly switched back and forth. It was hard to follow, at least on audio.

As for the characters, I felt that there were too many characters to keep up with throughout the whole book. I had a hard time following which character the story was about due to the many characters that the story maintained. That many characters made it feel jumbled and confusing.

I have heard many great things about this book, so I am considering actually reading it before I pass my final judgment and due to these many great reviews, I will most likely read this book later on.

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