Giddy Over YA

Fissure Free is book 2 in the Schasm series by Shari J. Ryan. After reading Schasm, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book! It’s no secret how much I loved Schasm and I had very high expectations for Fissure Free. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I thought Fissure Free fell a little short. The majority of this book takes place in the dreamlike state referred to as The Drift. The fantasy elements in Schasm swept me up and took me along for the ride but in Fissure Free I felt more like I was reading a really fabulous fairy tale. Don’t get me wrong, the writing was beautiful—almost poetic. The power of love between Alex and Chloe couldn’t have been more expressive if Celine Dion was singing it herself. The realistic aspects of mental illness and the tricky nature of the mind that was so brilliantly shown in Schasm, however, were almost missing entirely in Fissure Free. I actually found the fantasy elements to be more believable in Fissure Free than the reality. Although the story didn’t go as I had hoped and there were some obvious plot holes, it was still a very enjoyable read. I’m looking forward to the next book and hoping to see more of the realistic aspects that I found so wonderfully perplexing in Schasm.

Originally posted at the Author Alliance.