BOOK REVIEW: "A Thousand Pieces of You" by Claudia Gray

1.5

Nothing hurts more than the sense of betrayal wrapped up in a gorgeous book cover and a more-than-promising blurb. Perhaps a 1.5 review is slightly harsh for Claudia Gray’s “A Thousand Pieces of You” (more truthfully “only five pieces of you”) and perhaps I'll regret that later and change it to two stars out of pity and a sense of inconsistency (I mean I did have the decency to give John Green’s “Paper Towns” two stars… on goodread), but honestly I can only award praise to this book for its premise. The book promised world class physicists, a dimension jumping story line, and a hot chase for vengeance. Sure enough, I was lured spectacularly into this book's clutches. Expecting a thrilling science-fiction tale, I was met with, poor characterization & character motivation, Romance with a capital R, and poorly written science-fiction full of plot holes that are probably more suited to the fantasy genre.

Firstly the protagonist, Marguerite, is completely irritating and a poor narrator voice. Her characterization is your typical headstrong heroine, where perhaps headstrong translates more closely to “frustratingly stubborn” in this case. I would normally not completely shun a character for being stubborn, but here, Marguerite’s stubbornness lacks any foundation whatsoever. The motivations that drive her stubbornness severely lack conviction, to the point where she goes from feeling murderous hate for Paul, the man who she believes killed her father, to falling in love with him in a matter of hours (It’s like 5 pages). No exaggeration. Literal zero to a hundred. Furthermore, Marguerite’s actions, fuelled by her non-grounded motivations completely lack reason or perhaps sufficient explanation on Gray’s behalf. Within the first chapter we are given Marguerite’s gripping vengeance plan which is to “KILL PAUL MARKOV” – and why? Because she thinks he killed her father, and literally no exaggeration on the “thinks”. I feel as though having pulled myself through 360 pages of this nonsense I should at least deserve an explanation of why Marguerite believes Paul is responsible for her father’s death and why she believes the only option to seek justice is to jump through dimensions to find Paul. These are certain vital connections that Marguerite makes between these events that Gray seems to brush over, which makes for a character that is unrelatable and infuriating to the reader.

Another downfall of this book has to be the YA Romance part of the novel. Don’t get me wrong, as much as I make fun of YA Romance on twitter, I usually don’t mind a romance in novels – despite its various flaws it’s quite sweet and I usually end up melting. But O! This book has taken it Up. A. Level. There is every wrongdoing in YA Romance in this book from the classic “Love Triangle” (or should it technically be “Love Pentagon” given Margeurite sees every dimensional being as a separate entity…) to the cringey Insta-love. It’s all in there, and its constantly there and in your face. Take the extract I instagrammed earlier this week (because it’s just that good):

“….we both reached for the tin foil at the same moment. Our hands touched, only for a second. No big deal. I’d been with him virtually every day for more than a year but in that instant, I saw Paul as someone new. It was as though I’d never understood the clarity of his eyes, or the strong lines of his face. As though his body had instantly stopped being large and ungainly and become strong. Masculine. Attractive. No. Hot.”

Now this isn’t even the most “Insta-love” part of the novel, despite Gray explicitly saying “in that instant” and “instantly”, I just simply included this extract to display exactly how Gray had written the romance in this novel: blind and melodramatic. Further on in the story when Marguerite falls in love with a different version of Paul (yep, this is a DIFFERENT person) she literally fauns over him and literally uses phrases like “I was in love with him” and “the man I love” despite the much larger issue at hand which, spoiler:(view spoiler). Honestly, girl. Set your priorities straight. 

And on that note, don’t be fooled by my shelfing this novel into my “science-fiction” shelf – this is YA Contemporary Romance above all other genres because, well, the science-fiction aspect of this novel is poorly executed. I mean sure – travelling between dimensions – it’s already a bit fantastical but it is supposed to be science-fiction, and not fantasy. In the fantasy genre, an author can get away with having a few plotholes because once you set up a fantasy world, the reader can fill those plotholes and brush over them because, usually: *magic*. But this isn’t feasible in science-fiction; as a reader, if there are discrepancies between reality and the science-fiction, they need to be accounted for. For example, it was explained in the novel that matter could not travel between dimensions, but rather energies such as consciousness can. This is simple enough, souls can travel through dimensions but bodies, and objects cannot. Despite this seemingly clear explanation however, Gray breaks this rule as the Firebird Necklace clearly travels through the dimensions. Additionally, when Marguerite returns to her own dimension eventually, she arrives in the same place she left suggesting that either her body arrived there with her consciousness, or that her body has been sitting there soulless in the same position for a month. So either Gray has disregarded the own world she had set up where, or she hadn’t sufficiently explained how Marguerite’s original body had survived foodless, and probably not breathing for a month without decomposing or her family finding her body lifeless and freaking out. If I, as the reader, am questioning such a vital part of the main premise of the book in such a way, that is a huge problem in science fiction – the book becomes un-real and utterly unbelievable. 

I believe probably the most potent reason I am so infuriated with this book is that it’s science-fiction premise held so much potential. I cannot exaggerate this enough:travelling between dimensions. SO COOL. But nonetheless, I digress. So all in all, I was thoroughly disappointed and thus: would not recommend.