Friday, January 30, 2015

A Thousand Pieces of You

A Thousand Pieces of You
(image from epicreads.com)
Claudia Gray
(Trigger warnings for: Mentioned drug and alcohol use, sex (non-graphic), murder, a lot of water)

Just after his invention of a reality-hopping device, Marguerite's father is murdered. With the help of one of her parent's assistants, Theo, she chases after the man she's convinced killed her father.

The summaries are getting shorter every time I write them, I swear. Also, fun fact! I picked up this book because the title reminded me of that of a fanfiction I like. The more you know.

Sad start to the review, but here goes. I honestly wasn't too interested at first. There were other books to read, and it just wasn't that gripping in the beginning. But... oh my Thoth, once it got good? It got good. The plot heated up outside of some weird revenge-thriller. Not all of it was perfect, but it was mostly pretty great.

I genuinely enjoyed the characters. Even the Love Interest wasn't defined solely by Love Interest-ability (this brings me a weird kind of joy). I don't even know how to describe it. The parents were a little Leave It to Beaver, ruffle your hair type parents, but it didn't really take away from the novel.

Also- ploooottt twiiiiistttsss? I don't think I've read such a twisty novel in a long time. And each twist was pulled off well, with foreshadowing, but not a ridiculous amount of foreshadowing. But (you people are getting so tired of 'but's in my review, huh?) the thing is, it was maybe one twist too many. Getting excited got sort of... boring. And in between twists, it didn't feel as interesting. Which is kind of sad, because they were still good twists.

The universes were great. I mean, I'm not too great (see, there it is again), but 'great' is my version of being one step behind throwing it at people and screaming 'READ IT READ IT READ IT'. The Russia universe seemed kind of like a 'royalty AU' fanfiction at first (it technically was), but once the train scene hit? Ho ho ho, dear reader, it was awesome. [Spoilers of war] But did we need the sex. [Back, spoilers, back]

Okay, I have a question. Is there a sequel? Will there be a sequel? Because the end sort of felt undone. It ended the plot of the story, but there were so many possibilities and outcomes that just need to be addressed in a second book. Or in fanfiction. Heck, the end of the book essentially gave the plot of another! Argh. Now I need to check.

Conclusion: Amazon calls it 'Book One'. So I think we're good.

And, as last paragraphs always are, the romance aspect of things. This entire paragraph is a spoiler, so if you don't want to see it, avert ye virgin eyes. I actually sort of liked the romance. It was a good romance. They both seemed to genuinely like each other, and we weren't slammed with descriptions of Paul every single time she looked at him. It wasn't super sudden either. They had known each other for a while and were friends. The angst over 'Russia Paul is dead' made sense, even if angst isn't my favorite trope in novels.

 So. Good book. Might be a little hard to get into, but worth it once you start.

(Posting on time? Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha. Luckily, I finished a couple books while procrastinating on writing this, so you might get the next one before winter ends.)
 ~Corinne

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