Book Review: A Thousand Pieces of You (Firebird #1) by Claudia Gray

Name: A Thousand Pieces of You (Firebird #1)
Author: Claudia Gray
Number of Pages: 368 pages in Hardcover
Published: November 4th 2014 by Harper Teen
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Romance

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.

I’ve waited long enough before I’ve had the book to read and I’m so freaking excited the moment I had it. I so love the book cover. Felt love at first sight. Even voted it somewhere for The Most Beautiful Covers of 2014. I’ve noted the rundown as appealing too. Though I’ve read negative reviews, I was so certain that I would love this, but then I think I’m mistaken. I want to love the book or like it at least. Unfortunately, my feelings for the book only included “I’m bored!”, “Does it have to be that complicated?” and “I don’t care anymore.” moments. I recalled a friend commenting on one of my post (Last Teaser Tuesday) about me ranting that I’ve only read up until Chapter Four of this because I can’t find time to read due to the Christmas preparations and stuff and I quote:

Is it because you’re busy or because you’re not enjoying the book
that you’ve only read to the fourth chapter?
– Jan of Notes of A Readaholic

 

 

When I’m halfway done reading the book, I come to realized that she’s kind of spot-on. Now. Let’s get to the specifics because I can’t wait to spill thoughts out of my head and to probably rant more. 😀

The writing is somehow ordinary, but confusing at the same time. I’m bombarded with jargons from the first couple of chapters about science and stuff I’m really not familiar with. Do I have to be some kind of a science genius so I would be interested or I’m just stupid to not know what multiverse and dimensional resonance are? Do tell. Perhaps “These dimensions aren’t off in faraway outer space.” would be a simpler explanation. NO.

I read to relax. Not to Google concepts about dimensions and complicated science experiments. Sigh. I’m also confused about how the book is written since it has flashbacks in the middle of reading about what is currently happening. There are times that I can’t even tell if I’m still reading about some flashbacks or not. The book started on a sad note, but I’m wondering at first why I can’t connect with it. The grief that’s supposed to affect me didn’t register at all because I’m forced to think about the jargons being presented. That’s why. The world building is fascinating. Yes. Yeah. Okay. I did like it, but who write a book branding it with a Sci-Fi genre just because it involves science experiments and dimension traveling only for the plot to be about love and something else I didn’t care at all? While the idea of traveling through different dimensions is quite interesting, the events in between bored me. Just when I thought the plot is starting to pick up, it dragged again. So somebody killed Meg’s father, she thought Paul did it and searched for him through different dimensions without any idea on what she’ll do to him once she found him (Pretty stupid right?). In between traveling to these dimensions, she “felt” that it was not him who murdered his father and somehow (she forgot about his father’s murder and) they fell in love or realized they’ve loved each other way back from the start. Started kissing and singing The Birds and The Bees. After that, she’s back in thinking that he murdered her father, but she wants to believe he didn’t. WTF? And then, there’s Theo who really thinks Paul did it and who’s also “in love” with Meg. The attempt of the love triangle is also exasperating. To be honest, I reached Chapter 24 before finally realizing this is a waste of time. The twist at the end (which was revealed on Chapter 26 while the book is only 27 chapters. Argh) didn’t get me to be interested again. Sad. Sigh. From that point, I didn’t care anymore. At all. What’s the point? Don’t ask me how the book ended. I just didn’t care. So flat and so convenient. I thought it was written just to end the book.

I normally talk about the characters, but I’ll have this one as an exemption since I didn’t connect with any of them in this book. There’s no character development here so I’m skipping it. It annoys me. It’s so disappointing to think that I hate almost all the characters. This is so depressing.

I don’t know if I can recommend this so it’s up to you
if you want to risk picking this up or not. Sorry.

I’m giving this a two for the beautiful cover 😦