Review: Pieces of Us by Margie Gelbwasser

Posted March 8, 2012 by Rowena in Reviews | 2 Comments


Rowena’s review of Pieces of Us by Margie Gelbwasser.

Main Character: Alex, Kyle, Katie and Julie
Love Interest: Julie, Katie, Alex and Kyle (haha, not really but just read the book to find out who the love interests are)
Series: None
Author: Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

Two families. Four teens.
A summer full of secrets.

Every summer, hidden away in a lakeside community in upstate New York, four teens leave behind their old identities…and escape from their everyday lives.

Yet back in Philadelphia during the school year, Alex cannot suppress his anger at his father (who killed himself), his mother (whom he blames for it), and the girls who give it up too easily. His younger brother, Kyle, is angry too—at his abusive brother, and at their mother who doesn’t seem to care. Meanwhile, in suburban New Jersey, Katie plays the role of Miss Perfect while trying to forget the nightmare that changed her life. But Julie, her younger sister, sees Katie only as everything she’s not. And their mother will never let Julie forget it.

Up at the lake, they can be anything, anyone. Free. But then Katie’s secret gets out, forcing each of them to face reality—before it tears them to pieces.

This book follows two sets of siblings as they all harp on about how shitty their lives are. Alex and Kyle are brothers who has a Dad who killed himself right after he found out that their Mom was cheating on him. Alex is pissed at the Dad for killing himself and pissed at the Mom for giving him reason to kill himself. Kyle is pissed off at Alex because Alex is such a douche and doesn’t understand that Kyle isn’t like him, doesn’t want to be like him. Katie and Julie are sisters who have a really shitty Mom. Julie is the younger sister who hates living in Katie’s shadow and Katie, well Katie is the one with the real problems.

Throughout the entire freaking book, I hated Julie. I wanted her to walk in front of a moving car and not wake up, that’s how much I hated her. She was such a jealous little shit and she thought the worst of Katie throughout the entire freaking book. Even when she was being nice to Katie, she wasn’t really being nice. She was such a little shithead and I wanted to pull her damn hair and smack her again and again and then she sees Derek in the hall and after she says what she says to him, I wanted to punch her in her face and then run her over in my car, my damn self.

There is so much bad in this book that it was hard to get through. When I say bad, I’m not saying bad writing or bad dialogue or anything like that. I’m talking about bad things that happen. There are secrets that each character keeps from the others, there are bad situations that keep popping up no matter how much the character doesn’t want it to, bad words that are spewed back and forth between characters and through it all, my heart hurt for only two of the characters.

Alex is a selfish prick and Julie is a selfish little whore. If there was anyone in this story that needed someone to selflessly be there for them, it was Kyle and it was Katie. There was nothing that Alex could have done to save him in my eyes. There was no redeeming him after the shit he did in this book and the more that I read about him, the more I hated him. I hated the way he thought, the way that he hurt everyone around him, including Katie and Kyle. I just flat out, hated his guts.

This isn’t a fluffy, contemporary read with loads of laughs. This is a book that really guts you. It hurts your heart and you get all frustrated but you can’t stop reading. It’s also one of those books that stays with you after you’ve read it. It stays and your hurt continues to hurt long after you’ve finished the book. It’s one of those books that makes you think and it makes you want to help something and that’s why I’m giving this book a C. I grade books that I review for this blog on my enjoyment of this book. I can’t say that I enjoyed this book but I can say that this book made me sit up and think. It made me take a step back and wonder about snap judgements that I’ve made in the past and it made me realize that I’ve been guilty of this from time to time but it’s also made me want to change that. This book isn’t an enjoyable book but it’s still good and I’m glad that I read it.

My favorite part of this book is the end. There’s a wealth of hope in those last couple of chapters and I was glad for it. There’s so much ugly in this book (both in thought and deeds) but the wealth of hope at the end makes the reading experience a little better and I’m glad.

..and that’s your scoop!

This book is available from Flux.
Buy the book: B&N|Amazon
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com


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2 responses to “Review: Pieces of Us by Margie Gelbwasser

  1. JP

    Hmmm. This sounds… disappointing. I have it on my Kindle and I planned to read it this month (if I could), but now I’m not sure.

    I’m intrigued when you say that it guts you, hurts you, and sticks with you, but I’m not sure I can get through one bad thing after another. I hate books like that… you know, where there isn’t enough emotion and character development to carry a plot, there have to be tons of awful events thrown in.

    Thanks for the honest review!

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