All The Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen – a Review

Description:
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?

Review:

All the Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen is considered YA, but it is totally different then most YA, with an original storyline.  The heroine of this story, is a young teenager named Olivia.  We meet her when she wakes up with no memory of anything, and her worried parents all over her happy she is awake.  Once Liv goes home, her mom is overprotective and gives her home schooling.  They have also moved from their home in Minnesota, as her father, who is surgeon begins a new job. 

Liv finds herself hearing different voices in her head, each with different opinions, like night and day.  She is afraid to tell her parents about these voices, and keeps it to herself.  She does convince her parents to allow her to go to school, so she can meet new people, and try to live a normal life.

The voices are still there, as she meets a nice friend, Kiera; a group of popular girls, whom are part of Kiera’s group, and from afar a young student, named Spencer.  It is Spencer, who she finds out used to be part of the popular gang, who draws out Liv, and between them, they help each other slowly get to learn about themselves.  It was a bit slow going, listening to Liv’s voices both giving her different advice how to do things, and her parents, not forthcoming on information about her past.  Liv begins to suspect something is not right, as she begins to have dreams, with people she does not know.  Is this part of her memory returning? When she asks her parents about some names from her dreams, they come up with unsatisfactory answers, which rises her suspicions even more.

As Liv becomes closer to Spencer, she starts telling him a little of why she lost her memory.  She also pulls away a little from the popular group, since Sabrina the leader likes Spencer.   Their relationship grows, and I found this simple romance of two friends very heartwarming.  Spencer has his own family issues that Liv helps him with, as he works with her on her memory; making them a great team.  It was also nice that there was no love triangle in this story. It was a story of two people, alone, somewhat broken; who learn to trust each other, and put all the broken pieces together.  Of course, Liv’s situation is more volatile.

As some of her memories unfold, and Spencer tries to research things from her memory, discoveries are found.  With no spoilers, the last ¼ of the book is very well done, and the plot speeds to a climatic ending.  It is a bombshell of an ending, and as the mystery is solved, most of the pieces fall into place to a satisfying conclusion. 

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher