“His mother asked me to do this, because she said it wasn’t something a mother should ever have to do.” And so 17-year-old Jessa Whitworth finds herself packing up the belongings of her dead ex-boyfriend, Caleb. She was the last person he spoke to before his car was swept away in a flash flood. Each token she finds, be it a photograph or a dog-eared copy of The Grapes of Wrath, conjures haunting memories of their relationship. But as Jessa digs further into Caleb’s life, she unearths facts about a person she may not have truly known at all.
Told in three parts, Megan Miranda’s new novel transitions from Jessa’s grief to her frantic search for answers. Interspersed throughout are snippets of her relationship with Caleb, allowing readers to piece together the clues that lead to an edge-of-your-seat denouement. Skillfully crafted, Fragments of the Lost is a suspenseful, heart-in-your-throat read.
Kimberly Giarratano is the author of Grunge Gods and Graveyards, a young adult paranormal mystery.
This article was originally published in the November 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
