Review of A Thousand Pieces of You

A Thousand Pieces of You

By Claudia Gray

About:

Every Day meets Cloud Atlas in this heart-racing, space- and time-bending, epic new trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray.
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.

Source: Goodreads

My rating: 4/5

My Thoughts:

So many book bloggers have hyped this book up to be one of their favourites from 2014 so I thought why not give it a chance and see what all the fuss is about. Unfortunately, I didn't think it was as WOW as the majority of reviews...

At the heart of it, A thousand pieces of you is about traveling to different dimensions to other versions of you. The belief is that there are many dimensions in which a form of us may or may not exist and each version of us may be slightly different but we are the same. It sounds confusing but it sort of makes sense too.  

 Meg's parents, the genius physicists have created a device called a 'firebird,' which allows the wearer of it to travel to another dimension that they already exist in and enter their 'other' body.  

 We see how Meg and Theo use their prototype firebirds to chase Paul across a number of dimensions because they believe Paul killed Meg's father. There are a lot more twists and turns and all isn't as it seems.

I've always been fascinated by the concept of travelling to alternate dimensions, in fact it was what I based my NaNoWriMo book about. The most interesting part was discovering what type of person each of the 3 main characters was in another dimension, the similarities and differences. For example, I liked how Meg was always done sort of artist in each of the dimensions, regardless of whether she was just the daughter of two research professors, an almost celebrity living with her snobby aunt or the daughter of a cold Russian Tsar. 

On to the boys, Paul and Theo. At first I thought that Theo would be my favourite, considering how sweet and dependable he was, despite being cocky and often reckless. He always took care of Meg, putting her first, ensuring he reached her as soon as he could, even if it meant flying a helicopter across the ocean, he'd be there.  

However, as I began to see Paul's side of the story I too believed that he couldn't have killed her father. Unlike Theo, Paul doesn't have a way with words and often ends up offending Meg even though he was trying to be honest, but I found that endearing. He continues to risk his life for Meg, even when she thinks he's the bad guy. Most importantly, in one dimension he doesn't have his firebird on him so can't remember the whole traveling malaki and has no reason to believe Meg considering a device like a firebird could not exist in his kind of life, he still believes her. 

In conclusion, this book was cleverly written and I enjoyed the often confusing twists in the story, but given the hype around it I expected a while lit more from it. Nevertheless, it is the first in the series so I will try to give it the benefit of the doubt and hope that the second book proves to be worth the high praise.

Zed (:

Favourite Quotes:

"I have to admit," I whisper to Theo, "that was pretty smooth." "Smooth is my middle name. Actually, it's Willem, but tell anybody that and, I warn you, I will take revenge."

Now I know grief is a whetstone. It sharpens all your love, all your happiest memories, into blades that tear you apart from within. Something has been torn out from inside me that will never be filled up, not ever, no matter how long I live. They say "time heals," but even now, less than a week after my father's death, I know that's a lie. What people really mean is that eventually you'll get used to the pain. You'll forget who you were without it; you'll forget what you looked like without your scars.

I meant it when I said I didn't believe in love at first sight. It takes time to really, truly fall for someone. Yet I believe in a moment. A moment when you glimpse the truth within someone, and they glimpse the truth within you. In that moment, you don't belong to yourself any longer, not completely. Part of you belongs to him; part of him belongs to you. After that, you can't take it back, no matter how much you want to, no matter how hard you try.

Dad peers around the corner, his face barely visible above Mom's exuberant philodendron. "Have both of you gone mad simultaneously?" "Yeah," Theo says, "it saves time."

The most powerful presence in the room is his absence.

He deserves better than this. But "deserves" doesn't have a lot to do with falling in love.