Genre: Sci-Fi


Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Review: A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray

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I received this book for free from HarperTeen in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review: A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia GrayA Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
Series: Firebird #1
Published by HarperTeen on November 4, 2014
Genres: Sci-Fi, YA
Source: HarperTeen
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three-half-stars

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.

Don’t be fooled by my 3-star rating. Because despite all my problems with it, I actually… liked this book. O_O

First of all, you guys know me – anything with science and traveling through space/time, I’m 100% game for that. I like exploring all kinds of possibilities and going beyond what we deem as reality. There’s a kind of poetry in it, you know? The feeling that there are still so much out there that we need to understand and discover, that the universe is so much bigger and grander than we could possibly perceive, and that amazes me. It’s a romantic, philosophical, and awe-inspiring concept, so seeing it as the central concept in a book made me giddy with glee.

However, I didn’t expect that the book would largely be… romantic-driven. I expected a lot of science fiction action, a lot of dimension-leaping and uncovering of corporate conspiracies, but more than 50% of the book was simply about figuring who to trust and learning to love someone in a way that transcends both time and space.

Which isn’t a bad thing, because I found that both concepts worked hand in hand. Yes, you can have a sci-fi novel about leaping dimensions and have love behind it as the blinding force.

Because you know what the love portrayed in this book showed me? That love is universal. That love is eternal, omnipotent, and goes beyond time and space. It is not limited to the reality we know and that it is not bound and chained by anything.

Take for example the relationship between Margeurite and her father. The father who she has known, the father who raised her and cared for her and nurtured since she was born, was found dead in her home dimension. She finds him again – or at least a version of him – in another when she leaped into another dimension in search of answers. Despite not being the father who didn’t let her borrow her car, explored physics alongside her mom, or let her draw rainbows on their white boards, they still had feelings of familial love for one another – because even though they lived two different lives, they knew that they were connected by something that was beyond time and space. She still had her mother’s eyes, he still had his love for science; he recognized her as his daughter, and she recognized him as the dad who helped shape her be the person she was. They simply only had different circumstances, but that didn’t stop love from finding them both and bringing them together.

This was the kind of love that I saw here, and honestly, it made me cry a bit, because it only shows how much powerful love can be. This was amplified even more by the science fiction aspect that helped drive the story forward.

However, that doesn’t mean there were things I didn’t like…

The thing with this book is, when a person jumps into another dimension, they don’t bring their body with them – only their consciousness. Their consciousness then invades the body of their equivalent in the next dimension, meaning I would still be in my body, only that the body I invade would have lived a completely different life. So, yes, Margeurite was still in Marguerite’s body, only that it wasn’t her life she was living – it was another Marguerite’s which could well be someone else because she will have had different experiences, different feelings, different circumstances, that differ from the original Marguerite.

There was one scene here that really pissed me off – when our original Margeurite decided to have sex using another Marguerite’s body, pretty much stealing the experience from her and not even giving her the chance to decide if she even wanted to do it. And take note – the other Marguerite was supposed to be the virgin bride to the Prince of Whales, so not only did she steal the power to choose when to have sex from the other Marguerite, she pretty much fucked her over politics-wise. To add insult to injury, when all has been said and done, she left the body to jump to another dimension, leaving the poor other Marguerite to pick up the pieces by herself.

Sigh, that was a douchebag move…

Another thing that I didn’t like here was the many times the book copped out of explaining certain things about how the world or the tools worked. Examples:

The devices have to be made out of specific materials that move much more easily than other forms of matter; they have to anchor the consciousness of the traveler, which is apparently very difficult; and about a million other technical considerations I’d have to get umpteen physics degrees to even understand. Long story short: the devices are REALLY hard to make.

LOL, thanks Einsteen, I feel really enlightened now.

“When people travel through dimensions,” he said, staring down at the prototypes, “they leave traces. Subatomic — okay, I’m gonna cut to the chase. The point is, I can go go after Paul.”

WOW, REALLY? YOU DON’T SAY!

Every time this happened, it pissed me a lot. Thankfully, there weren’t often, and there were still a lot of science-y stuff that I appreciated.

Overall, I liked this book a lot. There were some things that really rubbed me the wrong way, so of course, that’s going to affect my reading experience. But the message of family and love mixed with sci-fi awesomeness was really fantastic – this book was one part thrilling and one part poetic. The perfect combination, if you ask me.

three-half-stars

3.5 Hot Espressos

Review: The Cage by Megan Shepherd

Review: The Cage by Megan Shepherd

Posted by on 05/04/2015 • 10 Comments

Everything considered, this is not a bad book at all – the writing is good and flows well, the world building is excellent, and the characters well developed – but I was kind of meh about a large portion of it.

My biggest complaint is how a big part or the book is spent bickering and pointlessly planning an escape. I mean, how do they expect to get back home? They’re in some alien world for gods sake and Cora’s plan is to make a run for it and hope for the best? It’s like she never even takes this into question until way later when she makes up some half-ass plan that seems to be all about blind luck and a whole lot of guessing. I’m all for…

Review: The Cage by Megan Shepherd

Review: The Cage by Megan Shepherd

Posted by on 04/08/2015 • 12 Comments

Gah, I’m not sure what to think about this book. One one hand, I feel like it’s definitely unique and refreshing, partaking on a sci-fi idea and molding it into something new. On the other hand, it had a lot of things that made me raise my eyebrow, want to bang my head on a wall, and gouge my eyes out.

Let’s get one thing straight, though: the writing is mad awesome. It’s been a while since I’ve read such beautiful writing that reads like a sweet harmony, as if reading it is like listening to angelic music. I have heard of the author’s writing prowess in reviews of her previous series The Madman’s Daughter, but now I am a firm believer. The narration and how the words were connected and…

Review: Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Review: Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Posted by on 01/26/2015 • 29 Comments

If you thought Queen Levana was evil before, you will see just how corrupted she really is! I don’t often read novellas, but this one is a bit longer than average and completely worth it to be able to see Levana’s childhood and how she grew up to be who she is. It also gives us a glimpse at our beloved characters’ childhood so we get a real 360 look at what happened in the past.

Despite her evil ways and sometimes shocking delusions, Levana’s story is just plain sad. This hard-edged personality of hers was built from a tough childhood that lacked real parental guidance and, most importantly, love and affection. The fire tragedy that brought about her scars was horrifying, and some might consider it the beginning…

Review: Polaris (Avalon #2) by Mindee Arnett

Review: Polaris (Avalon #2) by Mindee Arnett

Posted by on 01/20/2015 • 12 Comments

First I have to say that I almost gave up on this book. I liked the first book, so I really wanted to see where things went in this so I continued on. It took a while, but when I finally got into it, I was hooked. It was very action packed and adventure filled. I still didn’t really care too much for the characters, but there was so much going on that I guess I was distracted from them a lot. Speaking of a lot going on, there is conspiracy, after conspiracy and betrayals galore. I really liked the story and how things all led from one thing to another in a shit storm though. I didn’t love it, but it was still enjoyable.

Jeth just doesn’t do…

Review: Invaded (Alienated #2) by Melissa Landers

Review: Invaded (Alienated #2) by Melissa Landers

Posted by on 01/15/2015 • 11 Comments

I loved the first book so I was really excited to read this sequel. While it didn’t wow me quite as much, I still really loved this one too. I loved the characters and how much they changed and grew. The storyline was fantastic and I really enjoyed the direction that it went. It was pretty obvious where things were going, but exciting to see how things would end up at that point and exactly how far we would get to see.

Cara is now on Aelyx’s planet, L’eihr, while he is back on Earth in order to make sure that the alliance goes through. She has gained citizenship, but things are far from easy for her. Besides missing home and missing Aelyx, the clones on L’eihr are not…

Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Posted by on 12/19/2014 • 23 Comments

Well, what do you know… I actually found myself enjoying this one, despite my initial reservations.

If I could briefly describe this book, it’s Red Rising by Pierce Brown Set in a Castle-Turned-Into-X-Men-Academy. And trust me, it’s way cooler than it sounds. And it already sounds way cool.

It’s a premise we have seen before – in fiction and in history: the people are divided into two classes, the rulers and the ruled. The first are the Silvers, who enjoy the luxuries of life and have various abilities (reading and controlling minds, manipulating elements, healing); we also have the Reds, who toil and work their lives away for the latter, oppressed and living in extreme poverty. And we have Mare Barrows, a Red who finds herself wielding Silver powers – an anomaly, a mistake,…

Inspirations for This Shattered World & Giveaway!

Inspirations for This Shattered World & Giveaway!

Posted by on 12/16/2014 • 27 Comments

[Banner Image Credit: Amie Kaufman Facebook Page] I was a huge fan of These Broken Stars when I read it a few months ago, and I’m really excited to have the blog tour for this second book stop by the blog today. I’ve got both authors over here talking about the inspiration behind Starbound! Here’s a bit of info on this book first:

Guest Post by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

What Inspires Us The question “how do you come up with your ideas” is hands down the most frequent question we stumble across when talking to readers. As much as we’d love to say “from the corner mart,” the real answer is that inspiration comes from everywhere. It comes from…