Pieces of My Heart

by Sinead Moriarty

Sinéad Moriarty's sixth novel, Pieces of My Heart, is a serious look at a dreadful disease, but it's never a downer because it's filled with Sinéad's trademark warmth, humour and compassion. With her thoughtful and insightful analysis of what anorexia can do to a family, Sinéad brings to Pieces of My Heart many of the qualities of a Jodi Picoult novel, while still managing to balance the darkness with a lightness of touch that compares with the writing of Marian Keyes.

Ava is juggling a life that seems to have too many pieces. First, there are her chalk-and-cheese daughters, Alison the angel and Sarah the tearaway.

Then there's husband Paul. Unfortunately, he seems more interested in work than home - which might explain why her sex life is practically on life support. That certainly can't be said about her Viagra-popping Dad, a loveable rogue who is determined to grow old disgracefully.

She would envy her best friend Sally, sassy single singleton-about-town, if she didn't know that behind her polished exterior Sally is as vulnerable as a kitten.

Somewhere in there is Ava herself, trying to do her best for all of them but lately feeling like she's running on empty. But that's before she notices Alison is in deep trouble. Now she knows there's no such thing as empty - not if she is to hold on to the most precious pieces of her heart ...

Sinéad Moriarty's novels have sold over half a million copies in Ireland and the UK and she is a four times nominee for the popular fiction Irish Book Award. She has won over readers and critics telling stories that are funny, humane, moving and relevant to modern women. Pieces of My Heart is Sinéad at her very best.

Sinéad Moriarty lives with her family in Dublin. Her other titles are: The Baby Trail; A Perfect Match; From Here to Maternity; In My Sister's Shoes; Keeping It In the Family (also titled Whose Life is it Anyway?), Me and My Sisters and This Child of Mine.

• ISBN10: 1844881520
• ISBN13: 9781844881529
• Publish Date: 6 January 2011 (first published 5 August 2010)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 4 September 2013
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 448
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9781844881529

Reviews

[Leah]

The modern woman is a Jill of all trades . . . Ava is a wife, lover, mother, daughter, friend, fixer, boss … so many different people, in fact, she no longer knows what it means to be herself. Not that anyone will let her – not her work-obsessed husband, nor her tearaway younger daughter, nor her out-of-control Dad, nor even her sassy-but-lonely best friend. There’s always someone wanting something from her.She’s trying to do her best for all of them but lately feels like she can’t make everyone happy. And that’s before she discovers that her elder daughter Alison is in deep, deep trouble. Can Ava keep a hold of the most precious pieces of her heart? And what will happen if she loses one?

I quite liked the plot of Pieces of my Heart and the main focus of the plot is the fact Ava spends all of her time looking after everybody else. Her eccentric father moves into her house after his second wife dies, before inviting a Polish stripper into the house, too. Her best friend Sally is worried she’ll never find a man and uses Ava to relay all her dating disaster stories to, Ava’s own love life with her husband Paul is flagging and her two daughters are complete opposites of each other: Sarah is a bit of a wild child whereas Ali is quite and studious. And when Alison becomes anorexic, that takes up a lot of the plot focus, too.

As for the characters, I found them a real mixed bag. I liked Ava, in as much as you can like someone who lets her family and friends run all over her without a thought to her own life. I could see why she was the way she was, but I wanted her to take hold and be able to blow off steam herself for once. Paul, her husband, seemed negligent at best, leaving Ava to keep the family going whilst he spent time at his pub. Despite Sally, Ava’s best friend, being a bit desperate, she was one of my favourite characters. I also loved Sarah, Ava and Paul’s youngest daughter. Yes the way she was written was very teen-cliche, but she was hilarious. Along with her boyfriend Bobby they were quite the double act. I didn’t particularly take to Ali, and I’ll explain why a bit more later. Finally there’s Charlie, Ava’s father. He was very eccentric, but I thought he was sweeet.

Pieces of my Heart is very well written. It’s told from Ava’s point of view, meaning that although we don’t get a first-hand account of Ali’s illness, we see how it affects the wider family. There’s absolutely no doubt that Moriarty must have put a lot of research and time into getting Ali’s illness correct and it came across as very well done as I read it, but I did at times find it a bit contrite. Because despite Ali starving herself and making herself anorexic, she did seem to blame it on everybody else. I’ve got absolutely no experience on eating disorders, and maybe blaming everyone around you is the norm but I just found it irritating. Much like Sarah, I just wanted to yell at Ali to stop being so selfish and just eat.

Overall, I did enjoy Pieces of my Heart. It had a nice cast of characters, it kept me reading because despite everything I felt about Ali’s illness I did want her to get better, or at least see if she was able to overcome it in any way. I also found Sarah added some much needed light relief during the book because sometimes the heart-to-hearts got a little too long-winded and Sarah and Bobby were the perfect anti-dote to that. Sinead Moriarty definitely gets to the heart of the story, there’s no doubt about that and I applaud the fact she doesn’t shy away from using difficult, sometimes taboo, topics in her novels. Sinead is a huge talent in Chick Lit and long may she continue to publish novels.