Allie Hughpye

Piecing me together was one of the BEST books I have encountered. AS IF! It’s the worst book in history! If I could give this book a -5, I would. I thought this book would be a story about a Black teenage girl finding herself and pulling through challenges. The idea of the story is good but was executed in the worst way possible. Upon reading this book, I discovered that the main character, Jade, is the most annoying brat ever. She thinks she has it worse than everyone else. She constantly thinks she's the worst and the ugliest person ever but expects people to think of her as the best. She takes her friends, family and everyone she knows for granted and expects all the opportunities to go to her (they do btw..). Still, when she doesn't get one she throws a tantrum and gets mad at people who actually get and deserve the opportunity. Her and her mentor's relationship improves after Jade realizes that she's not the only person who faces racism (shocker) which automatically seems like a huge red flag for a character. Every interaction with literally any character, she takes it the worst way possible. The entire book overall is also very unrealistic. You’d think she would have something to be arrogant about but there's nothing to her and she’s very shallow. If you were a character in this book and met up with her for coffee, she'd think you hate her and that you're racist because you put milk in your coffee to make it less black. As you can see by now, I have a deep hatred for Jade Butler. Jade takes the comment the wrong way and treats everything as racist. She thinks she won’t make any friends at her new prestigious high school just because she's a black scholarship student. So she doesn’t talk to anybody and expects people to talk to her. But when people don’t start talking to her, she thinks everybody hates her. Jade expects the most out of everyone and she expects that everyone will do things the way she wants it to be but she never tells people how she wants it to be and blames it on other people. Her character is poorly written and there is little to no improvement. Towards the end of the book she just throws more tantrums and it is seen as a huge plot twist and a positive turn for her character even though it's not. Jade's constant assumption that everyone hates her reveals her deep-seated insecurity and lack of self-confidence. Instead of openly communicating her expectations, she resorts to blaming others for not meeting them, which further isolates her. Unfortunately, the lack of character development and the sudden shift in her behavior towards the end of the book only serves to undermine the overall narrative and fail to provide a satisfying resolution for Jade's growth. I would not recommend this to anyone and if you do read this, I hope you are prepared to waste the next 2 weeks of your life on this.