Book Review: A Thousand Broken Pieces by Tillie Cole
The follow-up to A Thousand Boy Kisses, Tillie Cole’s latest novel follows Poppy’s sister, Savannah as she navigates through the grief of losing her sister. Check out my full review of A Thousand Broken Pieces below!
Book Information
Savannah hasn’t gotten over the death of her older sister three years ago. Therapy isn’t working and her anxiety is getting worse. So, she is sent on a trip around the world to conquer her grief once and for all, but she’s afraid this trip just might break her, causing her anxiety to crescendo
Cael is angry. Angry at his parents for making him go on this trip to find closure. Angry at the world. But mostly angry as his older brother for committing suicide a year ago. He isn’t sure he’ll ever be whole again. That is until he meets Savannah.
Review | Heidi Dischler
When I read A Thousand Boy Kisses, I sobbed my eyes out. It was cheesy, but it was still so real and raw and heartbreaking. This novel offers a lot of the same sentiments, but I found myself so bored. It took me a really long time just to finish it. A Thousand Broken Pieces centers form around the grief of its main characters and gives them a romance in between. I didn’t feel the chemistry, though, and a lot of the time, I didn’t feel the grief either. Which, for a book about grief, is pretty disappointing.
With the characters, I also didn’t like them as much as I liked the characters in A Thousand Boy Kisses. Savannah was just so… one-dimensional. Cael was wayyy better and I did kind of like him and felt his grief more. For the most part, though, I didn’t feel attached for them, and it was almost like they didn’t know each other one page, but were in love the next. Every other character in the book is skirted over, so you don’t get any fun secondary characters either.
Basically, one of the reasons I think I found myself so bored for this novel is because (while you may be traveling across the world with these characters) many of the things that happen are thoughts within the main characters head or each of them talking about how much they love the other. There are a couple of group activities to help with their grief that I found super interesting while reading, but that wasn’t until closer towards the end. Otherwise, it just didn’t feel like there were many stakes.
There’s not much else I want to say than that, but except the same level of cheesiness as A Thousand Boy Kisses but just not the same level of love. For the record, too, I loved all the cheese in A Thousand Boy Kisses, just not in this book.
Overall, this book doesn’t live up to its predecessor and honestly can just be skipped. I rated it 2.5/5 and rounded it up to 3/5 for the social platforms. The characters felt one-dimensional and the chemistry just wasn’t there for me. But I know a ton of people who liked it so maybe I’m just a cynic 🤷🏻♀️.
Source: Audiobook from Audible
(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)
