Friday, November 14, 2014

Book Review: A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray

A Thousand Pieces of You (Firebird #1)
Author:  Claudia Gray
Publisher:  HarperTeen, 368 pages
Publication Date:  November 4, 2014

From Goodreads:
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.


Review:
A unique twist on the parallel worlds premise, where you can only travel to parallel worlds where you exist because you take over your double's body.  Brings up all sorts of moral dilemmas about what you're doing with that body.  And where is the person's consciousness while you're in their body?  Asleep?  Aware?  Will they remember what you did?  You find out some of that and let me just say…awkward.

I loved the different worlds…a futuristic London, Russia in a world that's about a hundred years behind ours, a world where Marguerite is living in an underwater station.  Fascinating stuff!

The romance…let me just say this.  There's sort of a love triangle, but not really.  There's sort of three guys, but not really.  I was surprised by what happened with the romance, it was unexpected and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.  

And then there's a twist…that I didn't see coming.  At all.  Again, surprised.  It's the first book in a new series, but the main plot wraps up and it ends in a good place, but with plenty of story left.  Happy to recommend this one!

Posted by:  Pam

7 comments:

  1. Glad you like this one, gives me something to look forward to!

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  2. Yay! Glad you liked this one. Not sure how you feel about the romance? You should email me to discuss because I am solidly on one team.

    And yes, the whole taking over the other person's body and then the aftermath...Definitely awkward.

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  3. Hmmmmmmm. I keep seeing this around and I keep being interested in the cover and general concept and then I keep getting nervous about the sort of triangle, including multiple guys and multiple versions of the same guy. I'm afraid it might be way too much for me. For now, I think I will hold off reading this until further books release to see what happens. However, the setting sounds fascinating. And it reminds me a little of some of the themes in Trial By Fire. Thanks for the review, Pam!

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  4. I want to read this but someone was talking about it and then mentioned the ending in an unfavorable way and now I'm hesitant. I'm guessing it has to do with the romance since you aren't sure how you feel about it?

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  5. Hmm. I'm planning on reading this. I'll have to see what I think.

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  6. I'm still undecided on this one. I've been seeing mixed reviews and it's making me a little nervous to start. I do have intense cover love for this one though! :)

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  7. I really do want to read this one, but have heard not awesome things about the romance aspect which is a bummer. I do love a good multiverse story, though, so I plan on giving this a try still. Plus that cover is just amazing.

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