34 Pieces of You by Carmen Rodrigues

34 Pieces of You

Author:  Carmen Rodrigues

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Published: September 4th 2012

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

From Goodreads:

There was something about Ellie...Something dangerous.  Charismatic. Broken. Jake looked out for her.  Sarah followed her lead.  And Jess kept her distance, and kept watch.

Now Ellie's dead, and Jake, Sarah, and Jess are left to pick up the pieces.  All they have are 34 clues she left behind.  34 strips of paper hidden in a box beneath her bed.  34 secrets of a brief and painful life.

Jake, Sarah and Jess all feel responsible for what happened to Ellie, and all three have secrets of their own.  As they begin to confront the darkest truths about themselves, they will also find out what Ellie herself had been hiding all along...

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34 Pieces of You is a very somber read.  The story of Ellie is told from multiple narrators, Sarah, her best friend, Jake, her brother and Jess, Sarah's sister.  The best narrator is Jake,  I got a little more about who Ellie was from him.  But to be honest, I never really felt like I knew who Ellie was, I'm still wondering who exactly she was, and since this is a character driven novel, it was annoying.

In the beginning I was having a tough time to figure out where I was timeline wise, because it flip flops and feels like it's everywhere.  The timelines were divided by "Before January", "After November" etc., I would find that I would get confused and go back to see where I was in the previous chapter.

Despite the things I didn't like I was compelled to finish it to find out Ellie's secrets, and finished it in one day.  I did enjoy it, just not as much as I was expecting to.