Review: A Thousand Pieces of You

A THOUSAND PIECES OF YOU
Firebird #1
Claudia Gray
Young Adult/Sci-Fi/Time Travel
368 pages
HarperTeen
Available Now
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (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.

MY THOUGHTS
A Thousand Pieces of You returns the concept of the multiverse to the YA forefront, illuminating the possibility of infinite alternate realities and making a solid case for the idea of fate as Marguerite finds her life populated by the same people again and again. More often than not, stories involving parallel universes are scientifically complex enough to give us a bit of a headache (even though we recognize the need for something as complicated as the multiverse to appear completely plausible), but Ms. Gray gives us in Marguerite someone who lacks the mathematical and scientific aptitude of those closest to her. Our understanding of this world is then filtered through her, allowing us to grasp enough so as to believe in thousands upon thousands of alternate realities without being weighed down by the physics of traveling between them.

There are certain books where our initial meeting with a character inspires an instant connection, something about them drawing us in and earning our loyalty before hardly any time has passed. Marguerite is not that type of character due to the fact that pages after meeting her, we’re transported to a futuristic London where we find ourselves tangled up in all the differences between that reality and ours. It’s not until Marguerite finds herself in Russia in the time of the Romanovs (and a member of the royal family no less) that we’re really able to settle in with her, the chaos of her real life and her life in London slowing down enough that we get the chance to peel back her layers.

What we find is a series of beautifully intriguing relationships, both between her and the Marguerite whose life she’s currently borrowing as well as with the two versions of possible love interest Paul. We’re treated to the tentative and delicate love that exists between Romanov Marguerite and her personal guard, and then our Marguerite’s developing feelings for the same man. Questions are raised and loyalties are challenged, making us wonder whether loving multiple versions of the same man is in fact loving different men, or merely loving the same soul in a different incarnation.

There is a love triangle setup as Marguerite’s friend Theo makes her question her feelings a time or two, but thankfully once Marguerite falls for Paul in Russia, she holds firm in her choice and doesn’t allow herself to be swayed in any way. We’re left at a logical stopping point, no dramatic cliffhanger waiting to age us prematurely on the final page, but a number of things are left open enough to give the sequels several legs to stand on. Overall, A Thousand Pieces of You is a thought-provoking first installment in terms of fate, love, and parallel dimensions, and I simply cannot wait to see how things for Marguerite and her family unfold moving forward.

Rating: 4/5
 

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.