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  • ARC Review: Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
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  • Review: Karmic Hearts by Jhing Bautista
  • Review: The Conspiration of the Universe by Kenneth Olanday

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

ARC Review: Another Little Piece by Kate Karyus Quinn

You know that kind of book where it hurts you to read but you continue because it's too beautiful to stop? Exactly what I felt while reading this.

Title: Another Little Piece by Kate Karyus Quinn
Release Date: June 11th 2013
Published by: HarperTeen
Source: Publisher (Thanks Christine!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary:

The spine-tingling horror of Stephen King meets an eerie mystery worthy of Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars series in Kate Karyus Quinn's haunting debut.

On a cool autumn night, Annaliese Rose Gordon stumbled out of the woods and into a high school party. She was screaming. Drenched in blood. Then she vanished.

A year later, Annaliese is found wandering down a road hundreds of miles away. She doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know how she got there. She only knows one thing: She is not the real Annaliese Rose Gordon.

Now Annaliese is haunted by strange visions and broken memories. Memories of a reckless, desperate wish . . . a bloody razor . . . and the faces of other girls who disappeared. Piece by piece, Annaliese's fractured memories come together to reveal a violent, endless cycle that she will never escape—unless she can unlock the twisted secrets of her past.
Be careful what you wish for, it might come true. But not without consequences. Annaliese was found after missing for a year, but she wasn't the same when she came back. She's not even convinced that she's Annaliese. Now her family struggles to go back to normal, and Annaliese just wants to find out who she really is. But if she's not Annaliese, then who is she? What had the real Annaliese done to disappear? As she discovers bits and pieces of a life she had supposedly forgotten, Annaliese was in for a lot of heartbreak and pain, and finds herself tangled in a twisted kind of love that spans decades.

To be honest, it was exhausting to read from Annaliese's point of view. Every single poem she has written, which Anna found one by one as her life restarted once she came back felt like a knife to the heart over and over. They're simple, beautiful and sorely honest. There's always a feeling of melancholy accompanying her words, and sometimes just plain, heavy sadness, regrets, what-ifs and secrets that weighs you down. It came to a point where I wonder if that's all she'll ever have and get to feel. Sadness, regrets and pain. That feeling of letting down a lot of people, of being an impostor, of not fitting in, of being nothing. If she wasn't Annaliese, then who is she? The further I go into the story, the more I know of the lives and the circumstances surrounding Annaliese and I just feel so sorry for what she had to go through. The decisions in life she had made was solely hers, but was what she exchanged enough for her to be stuck to her current situation?

I liked Logan. There were parts where I felt that maybe Annaliese was better off loving him, that the sacrifices she had made for him was worth it. Because despite being a golden boy, Logan had his own problems to deal with, those swift sneak peeks at his not so perfect life makes him a less shallow character. Granted that the actions he made was based on something Annaliese has done, maybe it was also part regret and part pity but I felt like for a while, maybe it can be real. That it wasn't a product of a wish to get what wasn't really Annaliese's to begin with.

Dex is a complicated character. When he's with Annaliese it's sometimes hard to make sense of what's going on between them. He's unusual, shy, socially awkward and he's the last potential love interest I expect to get in the book. There's too much going on in his life, and the things he does is sometimes hard to understand. The hardships he faces and the tragedies in Annaliese's life combined felt like nothing good was gonna come out of it, but the unexpected happen. These two lost souls carrying an unusual gift and burden felt like soulmates. They understand each other. And though their relationship was highly unconventional, it was, in a sense, a great reprieve, that little piece of unexpected happiness. And I loved every single moment that they were there for each other. 

Every single scene with "the mom" and "the dad" felt like a small kick to my heart. If Annaliese was struggling to make sense of her life, what more of her parents? The ordeal they had to go through, their constant fear of her disappearing again, their struggle to get to know their daughter all over again. It was heartrending. Kate Karyus Quinn just had to nail every single scene to my heart with all the raw emotions it makes me feel.

What's brilliant about this book is when you think it's so good with all the things it makes you feel, the mystery unravels one by one and from being about a girl who has lost her memory, it transforms into something infused with mystic, power, magic, and you still continue to believe in the writing. There's something in Kate Karyus Quinn's storytelling that convinces you. What if? And then just when you think you've had enough of the angst in Annaliese's life, you're plunged into flashback after flashback of another life, one that started with a simple wish that turned into a never ending, bloody experience and it is about to start again.

There's a certain beauty in the melancholic, sombre way Another Little Piece is presented. It's about one girl's life, the choices she had made and its consequences. Her choice to face it, give in or put a stop to it. It's about a girl who wanted to get what she wanted by any means necessary, and it's this desire that broke her. It's about a girl who in search for the missing pieces that makes her stumble upon countless of lives, each not her own, acknowledging the ghosts of the pasts and the gruesome things that she did and wondering if it will ever end. It's about a girl, who, after remembering and getting back the things she has lost, had the courage to face what comes after, a girl who had to be broken once more to become whole.

Another Little Piece is an exquisite book. I can't say it enough, it's just so good. It pulls on your heart strings, calls out to you and draws you in with Kate Karyus Quinn's masterful storytelling. It hurts you in a good way, it gives hope in the end and a lot of lessons we can all learn from. With beautiful prose, fantastic plot and an original, new voice, what a wonderful, wonderful start for another author who is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine. I am definitely going to be on the look out for her books in the future!

My rating:

Content (plot, story flow, character):
What else can I say? A girl that just makes you want to hug her, one who has a way with words, an unconventional "hero", a persistent object of desire, an annoying, frightening villain and a story filled with mystery, suspense, heartache that just hypnotizes you. I just love every single moment I've had reading this!

Stunning: Worthy of a Goddess' Praise!

Book Cover:
Don't let that beautiful cover fool you, this is not a light read.

4 comments:

  1. I think you definitely liked this more than I did. I agree it did have a sort of beautiful tragedy to it all and the plot was unique. I just think it could've been executed better. That's the great thing about books though we all read them differently :)

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    Replies
    1. Hi Kristin! I think so? Some people I know would've given up easily because of the depressing way the story seems to move to. It's a tiring read in a way but I loved the way Kate wrote it. Oh, I'll definitely check out your review for this! Thanks for the comment!

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  2. I'm so excited to read this! It's actually my next to-read after I finish Insurgent :D

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  3. I forgot to mention the poems in my review but they were one of my favorite parts-so short and deceptively simple and very revealing.

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