Book Review: Miracle by Elizabeth Scott

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:

Release Date: June 5, 2012
Publisher: Simon Pulse
224 Pages

Megan survived the plane crash—but can she survive the aftermath? An intense, emotional novel from the author ofThe Unwritten Rule and Between Here and Forever.

Megan is a miracle. At least, that’s what everyone says. Having survived a plane crash that killed everyone else on board, Megan knows she should be grateful just to be alive. But the truth is, she doesn’t feel like a miracle. In fact, she doesn’t feel anything at all. Then memories from the crash start coming back.

Scared and alone, Megan doesn’t know whom to turn to. Her entire community seems unable—or maybe unwilling—to see her as anything but Miracle Megan. Everyone except for Joe, the beautiful boy next door with a tragic past and secrets of his own. All Megan wants is for her life to get back to normal, but the harder she tries to live up to everyone’s expectations, the worse she feels. And this time, she may be falling too fast to be saved....

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Review:

Elizabeth Scott is one of my favorite authors. I've read every book that she's written because I've found that no matter what genre she writes, I can always be entertained by her prose and characters.

I was super excited to read Miracle because it is a contemporary young adult novel and I personally believe that Elizabeth's writing is best shown in her contemporary novels. To me, it was proven as I read this story.

"When I woke up the sky was burning." 

And so begins the story of Megan Hathaway, the sole survivor of a plane crash. I have never been in such a traumatic state as she, but I found myself believing in Megan's feelings, reactions and actions as the novel progressed. My heart went out to her.

I'm a big romance buff. Huge, huge romance buff. Most of the time, I get bored with stories that don't have a large portion of the story about romance. This book had romance, but it didn't play a major role in the story and until the end, it was more about companionship. So while I don't often read books that don't focus on romance, in Miracle's case, I wouldn't have changed a thing. If Ms. Scott had pushed the relationship further, it would've ruined the book. With the state-of-mind that Megan is in, she couldn't have handled it. The relationship would've seemed false and unrealistic.

This book is rough on the heart. I teared up quite a few times. The writing style is what really does you in. The emotion seeps off the page. I quite literally could feel every emotion that Megan did. That's what I love about Ms. Scott's writing - she puts all her effort into the book and carries through a constant prose. I could read her stories all day every day, if she could produce new ones for me all the time!

Megan's mom, dad and brother don't really help her get through the trauma. They are used to a specific way of living. The crash changes that, and not for the better. It's easy to see that they all are struggling with Megan's change in personality, the changes in their lives and skeletons reappearing from the closet. Since we don't see what Megan's relationship with her parents and brother was like before the accident, we can only believe it has changed by Megan and her brothers' responses. Megan is uncomfortable with all the attention and begins to feel more like an idea than a person. Her parents and fellow citizens of Reardon call her a miracle. And so she feels more like Megan The Miracle than Megan Hathaway, teenage girl. I felt awful for Megan, for receiving all the unwanted attention, and for her brother, David, for losing the attention that he's had all his life.

The other minor characters really help the development of the story. Each one plays a role in Megan's life. Most of them are coddling Megan to the point where she can't stand to be around them, some are pushing her to her limit and others are trying help her find herself and regain her memories. I will be honest when I say that I hated some of the minor characters. Her friends are awful. I can understand being frustrated with Megan, but to dimiss her because she isn't responding to you. I wanted to shake them and scream, "CAN'T YOU SEE THAT SHE'S BROKEN INSIDE? SHE NEEDS YOUR HELP. YOU NEED TO STOP PRETENDING THAT EVERYTHING IS THE SAME AS IT WAS." Maybe that's just teenagers, but I know if Megan had been my friend, I wouldn't have let her push me away.

This story is about overcoming grief, loss and trauma. Miracle is about a girl, who is trying to find herself in the wreckage of her life. The novel is written with compassion, and captives the audience from the very first line. It's definitely recommended to everyone!