Book Review: All The Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen

Published December 11th, 2012
Entangled Teen
Paperback

What if your life wasn’t your own?

Liv comes out of a coma with no memory of her past and two distinct, warring voices inside her head. Nothing, not even her reflection, seems familiar. As she stumbles through her junior year, the voices get louder, insisting she please the popular group while simultaneously despising them. But when Liv starts hanging around with Spencer, whose own mysterious past also has him on the fringe, life feels complete for the first time in, well, as long as she can remember.

Liv knows the details of the car accident that put her in the coma, but as the voices invade her dreams, and her dreams start feeling like memories, she and Spencer seek out answers. Yet the deeper they dig, the less things make sense. Can Liv rebuild the pieces of her broken past, when it means questioning not just who she is, but what she is? (From Goodreads)

 To start, thanks to Entangled Teen for sending me an e-book copy to review.

All The Broken Pieces was an interesting read that I made a very personal connection to.  Let's just say that I know someone very well who deals with retrograde amnesia (AKA memory loss) from a car accident, and leave it at that.

The beginning of the book was slow, but it did pick up as the story progressed.  I also had the ending figured out within the first chapter, but there were enough twists and turns thrown in to keep me entertained enough. The characters developed quite well throughout the story, although I just wanted to slap Spencer on a regular basis for his self-imposed isolation.

My problem was the flashbacks, but not because they were poorly done.  I just hate flashbacks in books.  I just want to skip them and move on with the story.  The flashbacks here were essential and drove the story forward, so I was able to tolerate them.  Without the flashbacks, the book makes no sense, so if you're a "flashback-hater" like me, push through because they really are essential.  They're also all fairly short, which made me very happy.

I'm also likely one of the few people who kept wondering what medications Liv was on.  Was her immunosuppressant cyclosporin?  Was her heart medication a beta blocker?  Hopefully she wasn't taking metroprolol at such a young age.  Ah, the life of a nursing student with an interest in pharmacology...

Overall, I did enjoy All The Broken Pieces, despite my loathing of flashbacks.  While slow stating, the story picks up and becomes a giant puzzle you want to piece together.  I recommend checking it out!

Much love, Samantha