Today we're so excited to bring you a review and giveaway of Claudia Gray's newest novel, A Thousand Pieces of You! Claudia is not new to writing, with her very popular Spellcaster and Evernight series, and her new Firebird series (of which A Thousand Pieces of You is the first book) promises to be just as fantastic.
What follows is our take on the book (Marie and Stéphanie). How excited are you to read A Thousand Pieces of You? Don't forget to check out the giveaway.
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Marie's Thoughts
A Thousand Pieces of You is really multiple stories all in one: Marguerite’s coming of age; space travel between dimensions in a multiverse; a love story. And yet, somehow, the book manages to never feel unwieldy or overreaching. Amazing.
The main character, Marguerite, is a pretty awesome young woman. As the only artist in a family full of scientists, she isn’t afraid to independently chase her dreams. And although her physicist parents may not fully understand her tendency toward the liberal arts, they are always supportive of her. So often in YA, parents are missing, or completely unimportant to the plot, or even “bad guys.” It’s so refreshing to find books like this one, where the parents are not only present and awesome, but they play an integral part to the plot. Because of their support, Marguerite is able to truly shine.
When Marguerite’s beloved father is killed, she and Theo (a grad student who had been working closely with her parents, and who cared about her father like his own) embark on a journey across multiple dimensions in pursuit of his suspected murderer. This aspect of the novel was so exciting! The author does a fantastic job in having another character explain the multiverse theory to Marguerite early on so that the reader understands the “rules” of interdimensional travel. After that point, I had no trouble figuring out what was happening whenever they jumped dimensions. While the traveling characters were able to move between dimensions, they were not able to move through time, which added a little stability to the storyline. However, different decisions made in the past greatly influenced the “present” in any given dimension, so sometimes the characters were in America… and sometimes not! Sometimes they traveled dimensions and found themselves only a few miles apart; sometimes they were half a world apart. I didn’t find any passages where any major questions were left lingering as to how a character was able to do something or why something happened to a character.
Speaking of things happening to characters….
A Thousand Pieces of You is also a love story. A love triangle, in fact. As Marguerite and Theo travel through multiple dimensions together, the questions are asked: amid infinite possibilities, can one love endure? Does love for one person in one dimension translate to love for that person in another dimension? I won’t tell you where, but there is a rather steamy moment in one of the dimensions! What’s more romantic than a love that spans dimensions? I swooned, I’ll tell you.
Overall,
A Thousand Pieces of You was an exciting journey through multiple dimensions to bring a killer to justice. Along the way, Marguerite also comes into her own strengths and finds love. I understand that this is the first book in a projected trilogy, and I’m already looking forward to Book 2!
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Stéphanie's Thoughts
This book is amazing on so many levels. I love how many layers and details Claudia Gray was able to include in this novel, without making it too confusing. You can never go wrong when you combine a love story with muti-dimension travelling and action/adventure. I find it really hard to put my thoughts into words and I think Marie nailed it perfectly with her review.
At first, the book was a little bit confusing because you get thrown into the action right away, with very little information. The first time you meet Marguerite, the main character, is when she arrives in a different body after jumping into a different dimension. The information about how she gets there and why she has traveled this far comes later, little by little in the way of flashbacks. Honestly, I'm not too fond of flashbacks because in most novels I find they deter from the actual story. However, in this case, Claudia Gray does it seamlessly and they tie in perfectly into the plot.
Marguerite is desperate, to say the least. She will do almost anything to bring justice to her father's killer. She would even travel into a different dimension in order to follow the most likely suspect, Paul Markov, even if that means using untested technology her genius parents designed. The firebird, is a dimension jumping device that has been created by her brilliant mother. She and Theo, a grad student studying under her parents, follow Paul Markov another grad student, in another dimension that is very similar to ours, yet so different at the same time. As Paul jumps from dimension to dimension, Marguerite and Theo follow him. With them, we travel from California to London, Russia and even a water world! I'm really glad Theo is Marguerite's travelling partner, because as her grad student in physics, he is able to explain the intricacies of dimension jumping to Marguerite so that we, the readers, can better understand the details. The author doesn't really go into details on how the firebird device works, and I think she relies on our imagination to fill in the blanks.
I guess you can say this story is a love triangle, but it's a little more complicated than that. Marguerite has always had an eye out for flirty Theo, but Paul's wise and soulful presence has the ability to draw her in. What if you have feelings for a person in one dimension, and then start falling in love with that "same" but totally different person from another dimension? As many lives from many different dimensions converge, we're left with one of the most existential questions out there: can love survive time and space?
This is definitely a YA book because the main character is still of high school age, but since the other leading characters are grad students, I think it's also aimed for an older youth audience. Like Marie pointed out, many YA books tend to ignore the existence of parents, but in this case, parents and adults are very present. For all those close-minded people that believe YA books are only for children and teenagers, this book may just change your mind. It deals with real life problems that aren't about high school or vampires. I loved the fact that the author assumes her audience is intelligent enough to follow her detailed space/dimension travelling theory. Her concept on multiverses is not only original but very rational. It's obvious she put a lot of thought into it because any dilemma or problem you may have with multiverses are explained and make sense, from a fictional point of view.
The
Doctor Who fan in me loved visiting new worlds through Marguerite's eyes, however, like the characters in the book often mention, they are only travelling in space and dimension, not time. The story is also being compared to the amazing TV show,
Orphan Black. If you didn't know, the show is about clones, so I guess the comparison is being made because we see different lives through the "same" actor. Both also have seedy scientific corporations that play major roles in the plots. Whether you're a fan of these two TV shows or not, you don't want to miss A THOUSAND PIECES OF YOU! Already, I don't know what I'll do if I don't read the next book soon!
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About the author
Claudia Gray is a pseudonym. I would like to say that I chose another name so that no one would ever learn the links between my shadowy, dramatic past and the explosive secrets revealed through my characters. This would be a lie. In truth, I took a pseudonym simply because I thought it would be fun to choose my own name. (And it is.)
I write novels full-time, absolutely love it, and hope to be able to do this forever. My home is in New Orleans, is more than 100 years old, and is painted purple. In my free time I read, travel, hike, cook and listen to music.
Connect with Claudia:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr
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HarperCollins is giving away one copy of A Thousand Pieces of You to one lucky winner!
Giveaway end on November 7, 2014. Open to USA and Canada only.
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Sara Raasch has known she was destined for bookish things since the age of five, when her friends had a lemonade stand and she tagged along to sell her hand-drawn picture books too. Not much has changed since then — her friends still cock concerned eyebrows when she attempts to draw things and her enthusiasm for the written word still drives her to extreme measures. Her debut YA fantasy, SNOW LIKE ASHES, the first in a trilogy, comes out 
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