I hate to admit that I was unable to finish this book.
It was a great thriller from what I did read. And offered suspense and intrigue.

But I sadly was dealing with health issues at the time. And was unable to continue reading to the end.

What a creepy thrill ride - told in an unusual way! Very interesting story. Wasn't sure about the journal at first, but the story really grabs you!

A challenging red. It was a plot that was hard to follow. The messaging gets lost in the weirdness and the ending was nearly incomprehensible.

This book was for my teen book of the week during summer reading. I mean, what kiddo would not want to read a survival story with an element of horror? I love how the author chose to write the book as a series of journal entries. That format always makes you feel like the character is talking directly to you, and it feels personal. The story starts strong with a lot of action and mystery...and tension. As the story progresses, I began to struggle with a few things. A LOT is going on in this book! I don't want to give away anything, but too much "misdirection" (Is that the word I want? I'm not sure.) muddles the story. All in all, I liked it, but the ending was not as satisfying as I wanted it to be. Also, to be honest, the end was confusing. I do have to say, I am middle-aged and what is going on in the story is not new for me, so I think teens would really like it. There is a lot for kiddos to talk about. Lastly, I would read this author again.

This was such a unique read. I didn't expect the time warp aspect of the story. I liked the ending a lot. I thought that it was going to go one way and it went the opposite. I liked the writing. I will check out more books from this author in the future.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Good book, it had a good plot and great characters.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

This book is different than anything I really read and because of that, I wanted to do this review a bit differently. I will talk a bit about the book then I will list a few things I feel either one tells about the book or two are things I like about the book. We follow Sia who grew up in and around the water her whole life taking tourists out scuba diving, I do NOT want to spoil one single thing about this read. It was weird and full of adventure. It was a wait what's going on kind of read. Going in to tell you the truth I thought this was going to be a basic shipwreck, sea creature kind of story but there are so many layers to this story. It has family issues, past and present secrets, unknown mysteries; it just a wild ride. With everything going on there was not one moment where I was lost in the story, even with so much going on there is such a well balance to this plot. I can't go into anything because I think all you need to know about this book is family issues, sibling & parent relationships,
mysterious creatures, shipwreck. If you like any of those things this give this book a read! Please!


Themes or things I liked
-shipwrecked survivors stranded on an island with a mysterious jungle
-unknow monster/creature
-odd things happening on the island
- secrets and family

This novel covers a lot of topics. The main story of survival is compelling, especially when the twist is revealed. The romance is light and it seemed to be turning into a love triangle, but it did not. There were a few harassment scenes with a creepy employee. The importance of family both close and far away was key to the plot. The pacing switches from fast-paced action to the reflections of the main character, as she tells her story in a letter to someone absent from her life. Recommended for readers looking for a unique adventure.
3.5
This review is based on the eaudio and ebook of the finished copy. Thank you to Blink and NetGalley for the e-galley. My reviews and ratings are my own.

***Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***
A creepy thriller with a very big Lost vibe.

This was such a great read. It flew by so fast. I found myself really enjoying it along the way. YA definitely needs more thrillers like this one. I thought this book was really well done.

i really enjoyed reading this book, the characters were great and I loved the premise of the book. The cover was great and was what drew me in from the start.

I will not be properly reviewing this title as I was unable to get into it. I got a few chapters in and got a very claustrophobic feel to it and was unable to finish.

I didn't finish this book. The messed up timeline didn't appeal to me, and the author's illusions were too confusing for me to push through.

I really liked this book! It was refreshingly different, the characters were great, and once I began reading I couldn't stop. The weird plot twist really hooked me.

Sia, 17, works with her mother on a charter boat as a diving instructor and guide on deep dives, exploring abandoned shipwrecks with rich amateurs who pay good money to explore the mysterious vessels. However, when a dive goes wrong and a customer dies on her watch, Sia and her mom, who put an under-aged diver in charge of customers, could be in very big trouble. Sia tells her mom that she thinks something else was down there, something that glowed and seemed to be watching them, but her mom dismisses her and attributes what she saw to hallucinations that are known to happen when diving at those depths. In order to avoid questions from the Coast Guard, Sia’s mom plans to move her and the remaining customers to another charter boat in the area, one filled with a high school science team celebrating the end of the school year. Her mom’s plan seemed easy enough, but when the boats inexplicably stop working, and something much bigger than a tiger shark attacks them, Sia and a handful of survivors have to figure out how to get home while stuck on this anomalous island that seems as dangerous as the monster waiting for them in the waves.

The whole book is in Sia’s perspective and the chapters are written like journal entries as she records everything going on. She addresses these entries to her incarcerated father, just in case they never have the chance to see him again or tell him about it in person. This familial connection carries throughout as Sia talks to her dad about times past and tries to keep her brother alive and safe until they can reunite with their mom and find a way off the island. I feel like the integration of their family’s backstory was done very well – it didn’t distract too much from Sia’s explanation of the events taking place on the island and provided some of my favorite moments of the book.

Sia was actually a surprising character for me. She was home schooled after her father was arrested, so that her mother could take her on charters and put her to work. She would be the first to tell you that she was not the most intelligent person and that she lacked some basic knowledge that you probably learn in public school. But she was an expert diver and very intuitive. She often mentions having a Sense, a strong feeling when she thinks something important is about to happen or there is danger approaching. At one point it seems as though this Sense is just a byproduct of the island, but even before they get to the island, she has a very strong sense of other people’s attitudes and a solid survival instinct as well.

While the book does keep with its YA tone throughout, there are some strikingly beautiful lines that I think push it to that higher tier of YA that adults who are skeptical of the genre can enjoy. For example, Sia has a very strong affinity for the ocean, one that it seems runs in her family and has bonded her with her father and grandmother. This familial bond and love for the ocean is a common theme throughout the book. At one point, Sia is remembering something her father said to her about diving: “It’ll be like floating in space, Peanut, but with our lights, we’ll become the stars.” She goes on to say, “Every time I descend into the black water, with my body hanging over hundreds of feet of nothing like a girl drifting on the dark side of the moon, you’re there with me” (Entry 6). When remembering a conversation with her grandmother Sia recalls that “She said that when people died their spirit left, not from the heart or the brain, but the lungs. One exhalation of breath and their whole selves slipped out” (Entry 9). There is also a moment where Sia is underwater looking for something she can catch for food and she has this whole experience with a vision of her grandmother when she was Sia’s age. The scene is incredibly well done, but also has an air of mystery to it – is this all in Sia's imagination? A hallucination? Some ghostly experience? Sia has many of these moments of poignant reflection which are appropriate for the dire situation they are in but also carry a real beauty to them that don’t make them seem over-dramatic or too over the top.

The only complaint I have about this book is the amount of questions I was left with at the end. Perhaps I read too quickly and skipped over the answers to these questions - I was so intrigued and wanted to find out what would happen that I did rush a little bit, but I am still confused -what was the monster? Was it just an unexpected product of the multi-timeline weirdness that was happening on the island? Does that mean it wasn’t even real?? What about the dead people that were making their way to the island? Where were they going? Were they being controlled by the monster or was that also a weird byproduct of the time-continuum breaking down? What happened with Phil and the other survivor that Sia’s mom didn’t want to tell her about? Who even was the other survivor?

I was also confused by the interlude from Graham towards the end. Sia appears to have survived after the explosion of the U.S.S. Andrews, so was he just intervening to pass on the message to her father because he noticed she wasn’t going to visit her dad? But in the following note when the time bubble has burst and they are waiting for the Coast Guard, Sia says that all the things she wrote in the journal ended up disappearing, like they were never written. So did that message ever get to her father? Or was the interlude from Graham just the ending for another timeline? And in the note he mentions that hundreds of journals washed up on the shore in Florida... did that actually happen? Perhaps my confusion is from my inexperience with time travel logistics, but I wish it was a little clearer about how everyone fared after being rescued. I was so invested in the characters by that point that not being totally certain felt like a little bit of a letdown. Otherwise, I loved the book. I was drawn in by the comparison to Stranger Things and the promise of a sea monster, and stayed for characters that I quickly grew to care about and a mystery that I had to see through to the end.

This was a crazy ride and I enjoyed every minute of it! I loved the horror movie aspects, I loved the sci-fi side of things and I loved the main character. This book has total lost vibes and honestly, I loved the ending of this one so much more than the way lost ended! If you are a fan of low key horror movies, the show lost, and a good lost on a deserted island story than this is one you should check out!

What a fantastic debut! I was drawn into the immersive scuba diving experience from the start, but then things turned up ten notches for our characters. I LOVED the Lost feeling while also eagerly turning the pages to understand the creepier side of the book. The tag line is 100% accurate and I'm so excited that I found this author. I'm looking forward to more from her.

This book was so much more than I anticipated!

It was like a YA version of Lost with an absolutely badass yet believable young heroine.

Read this if you love the ocean, conspiracy theories, government cover ups, and science fiction-y time bending. Oh, and monsterish sea creatures bent on destruction. Can’t forget about those!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this amazing book. I’m not sure I would have come across it on my own. I will be sharing a review on my Instagram in June.

The Fractured Tide is creepy, action-packed, and thrilling. I definitely do not recommend people to read this book now, during this pandemic, because the story scared the hell out of me as the story was all about surviving and hunger due to scarcity of food.

Tasia is a 17-something homeschooled girl, helping her mom run her family business (diving charter) as her dad goes behind the bars. After an unfortunate dive to a WWII wreck which results in the death of a fellow diver, weird events begin to unfold. They unite with a science club summer fun party only to be attack by a creepy octopus-like creature. When she opens her eyes again, Tasia finds herself stranded in a strange island with a lunatic with a gun. But soon, to her relief, she also finds her 7 year old brother, Felix, and two people from the science club, Ben and Steph.

But things are never normal when one is stranded on a strange island, isn't it? It doesn't take long for Ben and Tasia to discover that things appear to be going on like a loop.

So, they are left in a island which is god-knows-where, with almost no food resources, a raging lunatic, ruins of their charters, the mysterious creature which wrecked their boats still looming around and secrets buried in the island (literally!). They need to escape. And first and foremost of all, they need to survive. Will they?

What I really liked about this book was that the story was fast-paced, thrilling and creepy. All the twists were interesting and unexpected. I love the fact that none of the main characters died (oh, oh, did I just spoil something?). I also loved the way family was weaved into this sci-fi thriller.

What I didn't like about the book was that the diving scenes in the book were too technical. I felt my eyes spinning when I came to read such scenes. Also, the ending didn't really strike me, because it confused me.

Overall, it is a good book. But don't read it now due to the reason that I have mentioned above. But if you do read, then remember that you've been warned!

This was another ill-advised pandemic read, because for some reason I keep choosing books about people having trouble finding food and struggling to stay alive. Despite the fact that it constantly ignited my food scarcity stress, Lutz's debut novel is a thrilling tale of personal and familial survival. Told through a series of diary entries written for the protagonist's incarcerated father, <i>Fractured Tide</i> has everything you could want in a novel, from a sea monster, to a strange island that is not what it seems, a group of of strangers who are forced to band together to survive, and plenty of suspense and mystery.