Oh, man. Oh, man! OH, MAN! Why is nobody talking about this book?! This book is one of the absolute best books that I have read in a long while. I took this picture after finishing reading it the first time through back in 2017, and I think that I've finally digested it enough to be able to honour it with a proper review. Let me tell you right now that it was not an easy book to read, but I am tremendously glad that I did read it. Not only did I read it; I DEVOURED it. I haven't read a book so fast in a long, long time.
Let's start with a brief synopsis, taken from the Goodreads page: "One second. Seventeen-year-old Corinne has everything. Her life. Family. Friends. Boyfriend. But in that one second, she loses it all. Now she's left with harrowing nightmares. Hallucinations. And panic attacks that seem to come out of nowhere. She tries everything to take the pain away, but there's only one option she sees as a true way out. When Corinne is sent to live in a psychiatric institution, she doesn't want to talk. It's pointless. They can't help her. But slowly Corinne opens up and wants to remember what it's like to be happy so she begins reliving her past life to her doctor. She knows she can't live in the past, but she sees no future and is faced with the hardest decision of her life" (Richards, 2014).
Now, I've heard more than my fair share about psychiatric institutions, like how people with whom I used to be very close spent some time at them, and how my college campus used to be one, even someone with whom I am currently very close had a scare where they were almost put into one, and I've read plenty of novels about what them and what they're like.
But nothing quite like this.
There is nothing quite like this.
I'm normally not a tremendous fan of flashbacks, because they usually scream, "Hey look! Lazy writing!" at me, waving and flailing, beckoning me over to witness the pile of clichés and encouraging me to scoff at them.
The flashbacks in this book changed my view completely. Sure, there are still going to be some terribly-written flashbacks out there...but because of this masterpiece, I'm going to give them another shot before dismissing them as cliché and bad. This book masterfully reshapes the idea of the flashback and unveils new information about what is going on, while the present is still going on simultaneously. A cliché that I cannot stand in books with flashbacks is when time stops around the person experiencing the flashback, or maybe they just black out for a few seconds and "awaken" to someone snapping their fingers in front of their face and chanting, "Helloooo, earth to whatever-your-name-is!" Instead, the flashbacks and the present are coexisting in the same timeframe, taking up the same amount of time to read the passage as is elapsing in the plot. This book takes the idea of a flashback and ties it so well to the story in ways that work and make sense with the psychology of what the character is going through. You can just feel how well-researched this was! It feels so real, and that just makes the tragedy of it all the more hard to bear. Flashbacks are supposed to provide insight into the event that is being reflected upon, but I often find myself questioning why we're looking at an event rather than how the character feels about it and why we're looking back at this event. With this book, the flashbacks were inserted in such a way that they made absolutely perfect sense every single time and were so insightful into the character's psyche rather than just saying, "Here's a thing that happened before you joined the story, dear reader!"
Let's talk about character now. I've read many, many, MANY "poor me" characters in psychiatric hospitals, ones that whine about having to go to therapy, hating group therapy and having nothing to say, being the bitter person who says that nothing they can say can fix you, yadda yadda yadda. When I picked up this book and read the synopsis, I found myself worrying that Corinne would be the exact same.
Spoiler alert: she wasn't.
She was real. She was scared. Sad. Angry. She was...accurate. Real.
The book is also incredibly realistic in the reactions and attitudes of the secondary and tertiary characters, obviously extensively researched as well. Despite the mounds of research that must have gone into creating these characters, not once do they feel stiff, fake, forced, or robotic figures who are just there to spew out what Corinne or the reader needs to hear. They are all individual characters, and it just so happens that we are reading what is going on from Corinne's perspective. I would happily pick up another book from the perspective of any of the other characters; they are all so interesting and are multifaceted, and don't exist merely as side people to Corinne. They are all created as individuals, a feat that I find not many authors accomplish particularly strongly these days.
I also absolutely love how the author put a short playlist at the end of the novel so that we, the audience, can tune in and really feel like we're part of the story. I find it so neat when authors seek to connect with their audience, especially through interactivity like that. It really forges a connection between the reader and the author that is more than just visually reading words on a page; it adds another level, another layer, by adding in the auditory sense. It's a very cool concept, and I think that it fits the tone of the novel very well.
I would love to talk about the plot of the novel, but I fear that I would give too much away. There are pieces that you can guess at throughout the novel, but when a sudden realization comes out...I can't say any more. You're going to have to read it for yourself! And once you have, please comment below and tell me what you think!
See more from Carrigan Richards at https://carriganrichards.com/
and check out my piece on her blog that I wrote for bullying awareness at https://carriganrichards.com/2016/11/04/everybody-vs-me-a-nobody/
Bibliography
Richards, C. (2014, January 26). Pieces of Me by Carrigan Richards. Retrieved May 30, 2018, from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20713184-pieces-of-me
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