34 Pieces of You by Carmen Rodriguez

A dark and moving novel about the mystery surrounding a teenage girl’s fatal overdose.

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...

This book was just as much beautiful as it was heartbreaking. It was an issue book, but (or because of that) there was a LOT of drama involved, as well!

There are several things I loved about 34 Pieces.

First, it was easy to read. It was a breeze. Heavy topics, sure, but the writing itself made it easy to follow the book and just turn page after page. I actually found myself in quite a bad reading slump before I started this book and still managed to read it in one sitting- that's how addicting the story was.

I'd say,suspense played another important role in my liking the book so much, but that's not exactly true.

I think the book was as suspenseful, because I liked all of the characters so much. Not only did Rodriguez make each of them very individual and interesting, she also made them vulnerable and real - and I found myself close to tears several times whenever one of them was going through a really hard time.

You know that feeling when you read a standalone and you love the characters so much that you can't even think of never seeing them again. Or when you finish a book and have no idea what to read next, because nothing could take your thoughts away from those characters? Yup, that's how strong they were.

Thinking about it, one could say Rodrigues shoved quite a few issues into one book and it might be overwhelming for some people, but I didn't feel like that at all. 

After all, the author handled everything really well. It never seemed like she just created that certain problem for a character to make the book more interesting - everything the people in the book were going through felt real and genuine and honest.

All in all I have to say that 34 Pieces of You completely surprised me - I neve thought it'd be this good! I can only recommend it - even to people who don't exactly love contemporary.