In Focus

Year two of the Independent Women Book club has kicked off. The first book of the year we read was A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray. This book is probably the best one we have ever read in this group. 

It is the marriage of a romance novel with the television shows Sliders and Quantum Leap. The book is fast paced with a lot of action starting right off the bat. There isn’t a dull moment to be found. One of the girls in the book club loved it so much she read it twice! We also found out there are two more books in this series that I am sure we will read.

The story follows Marguerite, the artistic daughter of scientists who had developed a way to travel to alternate universes using a device called the Firebird. This was done by inhabiting the body of themselves in the alternate universes. The parents have two assistants, Theo and Paul. When the father is apparently killed, Paul takes the Firebird and travels to another dimension. Theo fixed two Firebird prototypes that he and Marguerite use to pursue Paul to the other dimensions. The book features a futuristic Paris, tsarist Russia, and a world underwater just to name a few. Marguerite learns there is a spy in their home, the truth about Paul and why the corporation funding her parents’ research is out to get her. 

You see different worlds through Marguerite’s eyes and the attachment she develops with those she meets, while trying to blend in and be a version of Marguerite in the other universe. 

While there is some scientific jargon in the book, it doesn’t make it hard to understand and you don’t lose the story. It does force you to read it a little slower, but the story and action are entirely worth it. 

This is also the first non-Minnesota based author or book we have read. We are officially branching out. The next book we are reading is The Immoralists by Chloe Benjamin.