Early Review – A Thousand Pieces of You (Firebird, Book 1) by Claudia Gray (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: November 4, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0062278968
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Firebird series
Source: eGalley from Edelweiss.com
Rating: 5/5 stars

I got a copy of this through Edelweiss to review. Previously I had read Gray’s Evernight series, which I thought was okay but not great. The interesting premise and beautiful cover were what caught my attention with Gray’s latest book. I am so glad I read this book, it was absolutely astonishingly good. It looks like there are three books planned in this series, books 2 and 3 are untitled with undetermined release dates.

Marguerite Caine’s parents are amazing physicists who have developed something truly astounding, a device called the Firebird. The Firebird will let a wearer jump between parallel realities, not physically but consciously. When Marguerite’s father is murdered the number one suspect is one of his research assistants named Paul. With the assistance of another research assistant, named Theo, Marguerite and Theo use some prototype Firebird devices to chase after Paul. Their hunt for Paul will take them through many parallel realities both similar to the world they know and completely alien.

Okay so I just finished this book and I am honestly still a little speechless/breathless. This was an absolutely remarkable book. To be honest I wasn’t a huge fan of Gray’s Evernight series, it was okay, but nothing special. This first book in the Firebird series however is completely different from anything Gray has written before and it is completely awesome.

Grey presents the reader with a very complex idea and world, but she does a wonderful job of making something complex easy to grasp. The whole story focuses on parallel realities and characters that use a device called the Firebird to travel between them. Of course there is a lot more to the story than that. The characters don’t travel physically but their conscious travels into the person they would have been in that parallel realm.

The characters and plot are engaging and all the worlds they travel through are incredibly well done. You never know what reality the characters will end up in next. Some of the parallel realities are very similar to our own and some are vastly different.

Marguerite adds an interesting dynamic to the story. She is an incredibly talented artist raised in a primarily scientific minded family, yet this doesn’t bother her all that much. She is able to use her particular set of skills to help in her own way. Watching as she discovers how her artistic talents have surfaced in each reality she travels through is fascinating.

Marguerite, Theo, and Paul have a bit of a love triangle thing going on, but this isn’t really what drives the story. It is more that they have worked so closely and are such good friends. Theo and Marguerite feel a drive to hunt down Paul both to bring him to justice and to understand what drove him to do what he did.

There are so many interesting side theories on destiny and fate and the mathematical probability of the same people being interconnected in different realities. I loved that some of these deeper questions are brought into this science fiction driven story.

There are a number of crazy plot twists that I definitely didn’t see coming. Seriously this book blew my mind, while being incredibly entertaining and evoking a lot of emotion. I laughed, I cried, I held onto my Kindle (I got this as an eGalley) white knuckled.

I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. It ends at a great spot too (no awful cliffhanger). I am so excited to see what the next book holds for us.

Overall an absolutely stunning read, completely different from anything I have ever read from Gray before. I highly recommend this book to everyone; this is a book that will thrill and enthrall a much broader audience than her previous books. The world, the characters, the plot…all of it was just so engaging and so well done. This book is not just a thrilling read but also has a lot of meat to it, there is discussion of fate and destiny and the probability of people meeting across parallel dimensions. This was just such an interesting book and was impossible to put down. I absolutely cannot wait to read the next book in this series!

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Ebook Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge