Poudelivre

Months ago I came across a novel that wasn’t yet published, but had the prettiest cover I’ve ever seen. People who know me knows that I love beautiful book covers and that I, despite the good old Don’t judge a book by its cover, focus a lot on it. When buying a book I always try to find the edition with the prettiest cover. It’s no lie that humans respond to pictures and colors and are drawn to it, which is why I believe a good cover is essential for a book. A Thousand Pieces of You definitely has that.

The reason as to how I came across this story is because of the cover; I saw it and was intrigued. After that I looked up what the novel was really about and then I was hooked. I still had to wait quite a while before the book was published and I could get my hands on a copy, but when I did, it was so worth the wait.

This story takes place in a world which isn’t very different from ours, but for one significant thing. Travels between parallel universes are possible. Marguerite Cain’s parents have invented a device called the Firebird. It can take you out from this universe and into another in which you already live, inhabitate another yourself and see a different life. This is Marguerite’s parent’s lifework and something they couldn’t have done without their two assistants, Theo and Paul. Everything is good, until one day when Paul murder Marguerite’s father, steals the Firebird and escapes into another dimension. The perfect crime. Marguerite is left with her mother and sister and Theo, all of them distraught and heartbroken. Marguerite sees only one solution, and it’s to follow Paul into the other dimension and hunt him down so that he can pay for what he has done. Together, Marguerite and Theo head out on this extremely dangerous mission, only for Marguerite to realize that everything’s not always quite as it seems. Least of all this.

Claudia Gray has written a wonderful story on about 350 pages. It felt like much, much more but not in a bad way. Never not once was I bored, never not once did I consider putting the book down to read something else. I guess the reason it felt like the book was so long was because so much happened – and Marguerite visited multiple different dimensions. Everyone was the same but yet so very different and in everyone she tangled up with her family and, most importantly, Paul. They met in different ways and during different situations every time and in each dimension Marguerite learned something new about him. He was another Paul, but still himself and she was another Marguerite, but still herself. Slowly Marguerite started to doubt more than just the real reason behind her father’s murder.

I’m not going to lie, I absolutely loved the idea of jumping through, and visiting, different dimension. Seeing how Marguerite’s life could have been. Meeting new people, but also the same ones, over and over. Parallel universes in itself is something that interests me, so there was never a questions as to if I was going to read this book, only how fast can I get my hands on it? There aren’t way too many novels out there that is a story you really, really want to read. One that pikes your interest right away. A book that is you. But this book is really me and of course, my hopes were very high.

Every time I read a book I have a picture in my head of how it will be like, how the story will unfold. I had it this time too, but for once, what I thought would happened and what actually happened wasn’t too far off. The novel was good, great even. Fantastic. Somehow it’s fast-paced but you still devour every last word. There’s never a dull moment and it’s really fun seeing Marguerite in the different dimensions, see the differences and the similarities. In every new world she steps into, she has to adjust to a life she’s lived her whole life but knows nothing about. It’s almost like the book is one story with a bunch of sub stories which ultimately connect to the story. It might sound confusing, but it’s not when you read it. The opposite, actually. It’s truly brilliant.

There was something though, but I’m not sure what, that got me a tiny bit disappointed. Something that made me feel like I didn’t entirely got what I bargained for, like something was missing. This is only the first novel in a trilogy, though, so that missing piece might just appear along the way. Maybe it was so simple that I felt throughout the story that I kind of knew what would happen. I wasn’t sure and it didn’t go down entirely was I thought it would, but when I finished the last page I wasn’t all that surprised. Something for Gray to work on when it comes to the sequel, which I most definitely will read. This has the potential to become one of those trilogies, the ones everyone know of, everyone has heard of and everyone has read.