Dazzled by Books

"A Thousand Pieces of You" by Claudia Gray was confusing and fabulous. There were parts of "A Thousand Pieces of You" that worked great and other pieces that didn't work very well at all. I really like the concept of "A Thousand Pieces of You." People that are able to travel between different dimensions, we will have to admit this is a pretty neat idea. When I heard about "A Thousand Pieces of You," the first thing that came to mind was the movie "Inception" because in a way they traveled across dimensions even though it was through sleeping and they were always themselves, but it was still a fairly similar process or at least I thought so.

Marguerite Caine is the daughter of two brilliant physicist parents and sometimes she feels like she is left out because she is an artist rather than a scientist. When Marguerite's parents make an amazing invention, a device called the Firebird. This device helps people travel between alternate dimensions.

When Marguerite's father is murdered and everything points to Paul, a student of her parents, he is nowhere to be found. Paul smashes the current Firebird's except for one which he takes and escapes into another dimension. When Theo, another student of her parents, approaches Marguerite with two prototype Firebird's they escape together to chase after Paul.

In each world that Marguerite leaps into, she becomes another version of herself   keeps to meet the different versions of Paul, Theo, her parents, and her sister. Marguerite wants answers and the only way she can get them is if she can catch up to Paul. When Marguerite gets stuck in a dimension where she is a grand duchess in Tsarist Russia, she has to find a way to leap again.

I still think the concept of the multiverse is a neat one and I like how the characters would become another version of themselves in the next dimension. Since Gray decided to write her characters to were when they became the person who belonged in that dimension, the main Marguerite, Paul, or Theo knew everything that version of themselves knew. What I don't understand is when Marguerite gets stuck in Russia, she knew how to speak Russian but didn't know how to Waltz even though the Russian version of Marguerite would have known. It seems like the ball was dropped on a few facts.

Now there seems to be a slight love triangle in this story but it is more like two guys love the same girl and the girl only loves one of the boys. Too me it didn't feel like this took any major effect on the story. Everything seemed to play out like it was supposed too. It will be interesting to see if the love triangle becomes more developed in the next book because I don't feel like it is a big part of the story at all. There is a big romance to the story but I don't feel like it has much to do with the love triangle.

One of my complaints about the story is that it seems to be so slow and taking off the ground. Part of it is how the book was advertised. I feel like this was advertised as an action story and in reality it is more of a light romance. There really isn't any action at all. I was expecting a book that was fast paced and adventurous and really it is kind of slow and mellow to be completely honest.

The second complaint I have is some of the content. I feel like the content is more mature than what should be written for teenage readers. They talk a lot about drinking and getting stoned in this novel and then two of the characters have sex. I just feel that for a book that is written for teenagers that this should necessarily be in here. I understand that this stuff happen in real life but at they same time I feel like it is being glamorized.

Gray is a wonderful writer. She definitely has a way with words. I love Gray's writing. She writes so beautifully. Very few authors are truly gifted with the power of words and I think she is one of them. I hope to see more books come from her which I don't doubt will since she is a bestselling author. I don't think "A Thousand Pieces of You" is a bad novel because I did enjoy it quite a bit. I only had a few small complaints. I will be looking forward to the second book hoping that it will be better than the first.