A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray

• Release Date: November 14th, 2014

• Pages: 368

• Genre: Science Fiction

• Publisher: HarperTeen 

Marguerite Caine’s parents are geniuses. Literally. They’ve invented the Firebird, a device that allows a person to travel into alternate universes. Just as they are about to go public their graduate assistant, Paul Markov steals the technology, kills Maugerite’s father and escapes into another dimension. Now, with the help of their other assistant, Theo, Marguerite is going after Paul to figure out what his plans are and avenge her father’s death.

 I don’t typically read the trendy science fiction YA books, but this cover is so unique and I always liked Gray’s ‘I’m not like the other girls‘ blogpost and I needed to break my contemporary kick.

Jess is always telling me how time travel books can always be hard to understand and as I started this I imagined alternate universe traveling would be even more confusing. I hand waved most of the science stuff, but  basically the book  says that all around us multiple alternate universes exist where different choices have created different timelines. When you travel you are put into the consciousness of yourself in that dimensions and when you leave the version of yourself has no memory of you being there.

 The book gets very twisty, and turny what with all the different people in different dimensions so I won’t talk about the plot to much. I will say there are a lot of big reveals and for the most part it’s a fun ride as  they travel from place to place.  Despite the initial main drive of  this book being finding Paul Markov and his secrets, this quickly becomes less Dan Brown and more of a  romance complete with the typical YA love triangle.

 This book  hinges on a YA trope I really hate where the (typically) male characters don’t tell the female protagonist things for ‘their own good’ and causes a series of misunderstandings. I hate this because it makes the female character look stupid. I think there still could have been a story if she had known all the secrets that were being kept from her.

 I didn’t realize this was a series when I picked it up, but I found out midway through the book so I expected this book to end on a cliffhanger, but it actually wraps up most of the plot and I think you could read this one as a standalone. Although I will probably read the next one to see what dimensions Gray has next.