Author: Claudia Gray
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Source: HarperTeen via Edelweiss
Goodreads
Every Day meets Cloud Atlas in this heart-racing, space- and time-bending, epic new trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray.Review by Nara
Marguerite Caine’s physicist parents are known for their radical scientific achievements. Their most astonishing invention: the Firebird, which allows users to jump into parallel universes, some vastly altered from our own. But when Marguerite’s father is murdered, the killer—her parent’s handsome and enigmatic assistant Paul—escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him.
Marguerite can’t let the man who destroyed her family go free, and she races after Paul through different universes, where their lives entangle in increasingly familiar ways. With each encounter she begins to question Paul’s guilt—and her own heart. Soon she discovers the truth behind her father’s death is more sinister than she ever could have imagined.
A Thousand Pieces of You explores a reality where we witness the countless other lives we might lead in an amazingly intricate multiverse, and ask whether, amid infinite possibilities, one love can endure.
Just going to put it out there: the biggest reason I wanted to read this book was because of the cover. That cover is literally one of the most beautiful covers I have ever seen. Let's just take a minute to appreciate that beauty *sighs*. To be honest, I feel like a lot of people would have been roped in by that cover, because "don't judge a book by its cover" is totally not true. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably lying.
But of course, once I started reading the book, the cover wasn't the reason I continued reading, because sweet jesus the premise of the book! I must admit, I didn't read the blurb before reading the book (as I almost always do), but most of what's in the blurb there is actually in the first chapter of the book. And seriously, travel into parallel universes to hunt down her father's murderer? Freaking awesome.
There is a very tangled romance featured in the book, what with the parallel universes thrown in the mix, meaning that there are multiple versions of each of the characters. There's a slightly unnecessary love triangle- although I probably would have preferred for that love triangle not to be there, I feel like it didn't detract from the romance too much. And I suppose I can see the motives behind why the author would have included it (as I'm sure anyone who reads the book would be able to determine).
Of course, while the romance is a large focus of the book, there's also the mystery of what exactly happened to Marguerite's father. While I feel the secrets surrounding this mystery were pretty obvious, the tension and the build up to the reveals were written well enough that predictability wasn't a huge issue. There's also plenty of action and quite a fast pace, meaning that the book was never boring.
I am most definitely going to go on with this series, and I'm very excited to see where Gray takes Marguerite and The Firebird next.
Really liked it
Ratings
Overall: 8/10
Plot: 4/5
Romance: 3.5/5
Writing: 4/5
World Building: 3/5
Characters: 3.5/5
Cover: 5/5
This post is a part of Sci-Fi Month, hosted by Rinn Reads and Oh, the Books
