Very in Pieces

by Megan Frazer Blakemore

• ISBN10: 0062348418
• ISBN13: 9780062348418
• Publish Date: 29 September 2015
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[bookishzelda]

Very in Pieces was not necessarily a story I was expecting. I started reading and thought it was going to be this girl who does a big transformation at the beginning of the book because she is angry at life. It’s really not that at all. It’s a great coming of age of a girl who takes a look at her life in light of going off to college and her grandmother being terminally ill.

Very is a math genius and so she sees things in a very analytical way. A square on a canvas is just a square on a canvas. As she spends time with her grandmother in her final days she starts to see that she might have allowed herself to play a character in a story her family wrote. She does what is expected but she isn’t sure what she wants. We see her grow throughout the book not in one giant leap but with small changes.

Very’s family is what the story really centers around. She has her grandmother who is this famous poet, her mother who drinks her problems, her father who is absent and checked out of the family and then her sister Ramona. It goes through the way they handle the grief but also shakes out some other family issues that were floating just below the surface. They all have things to work out.

There are two boys but that’s not really the focus of the story. It’s more like the represent the safe option for Very and the unknown option for her.

I really enjoyed the way Very grows and how the story revolves around her family mainly. There were times it felt a little slow but I was intrigued enough to keep reading. It’s a great book to read to break away from the norm and I finished feeling satisfied with the story.

[shannonmiz]

This review was originally posted on It Starts at Midnight
I liked Very in Pieces. I didn't completely love it, but I liked it. And I just decided that I really can't do this justice without a likes/dislikes list. So it shall be.

Things I Enjoyed:

• Very. Very reminded me a lot of myself, especially at the start of the book. Very was doing all the things that she assumed she was "supposed to" do, but not really having a damn clue what she wanted. She's basically the only responsible and level headed person in her family of artists. Her grandmother, who is a world-renowned poet, is dying of lung cancer. All her mom seems to want to do is drink and host parties, her sister Ramona is emotionally distant and physically absent a large percent of the time, and well, who knows what her dad is up to at any given point. She's been caring for her Nonnie, and is cracking under her impending death. Add to it that she needs to figure out where she wants to go to school, her non-feelings for her boyfriend, and her new friend Dominic, and well, things are hard. I enjoyed the journey Very takes to try to find herself, that was quite lovely.


• The family dynamics. They weren't all good and they weren't all bad. So you know, like every other family ever. Which is refreshing. A lot of times, families seem painted into boxes: Good, supportive, cozy families, or bad, dysfunctional, harmful ones. The Sales-Woodruff family falls into neither box, like nearly everyone else's families. The family evolves in the story just as Very does, and Very has very different relationships with each person. The relationship that I enjoyed the most was Very's relationship with her grandma. It was beautiful, and sweet, and she just seemed like such a good person for Very. It was also rather heartbreaking for Very to struggle with the thought that she'd be gone soon.


• Dominic's role. Is it bad that I liked him so much because I really wanted the dull boyfriend out of the picture? I don't know if Dominic would have sold me on his own, but compared to that other lump of dough, Dominic was amazing. Also, I do like the impact he had on Very. People tried to box Very into the "perfect student" role, and even told her that she shouldn't be seen with Dominic because of his "bad boy reputation", but Very wasn't going to just listen to a bunch of meritless stories. So you know, good for you, Very!

The Things I Did Not So Much:

• It was just kind of slowwww. Find, not kind of. It was slow. Things happened, they just took a lot of time to get there. Like, the book is 384 pages, but I don't know that it needed to be. And it also felt like more than 384 at times.


• Very's friends and boyfriend were really unremarkable. Christian, the boyfriend and aforementioned lump of dough (not even Play-Doh, that is at least fun and brightly colored) really adds nothing other than to remind Very of what happens when you stick to the safe choice. Which is true, maybe that IS the point of his whole character, and if so, mission accomplished.
  And I barely even remember her friends, and I finished this book on Sunday. So... not memorable. I feel like there were two of them? Anyway. I could have done without all of them, they felt like filler characters or something.

Bottom Line: Family dynamics and character growth? Fabulous. Plot? Slow. Overall, decent.

[Linda]

*I received a free ARC of Very in Pieces from HarperTeen via Netgalley in exchange of an honest and unbiased review*

Not sure about the stars... need to sort my thoughts and write my review, so my rating may very well change.

This and all my other reviews are originally posted on my blog (un)Conventional Bookviews