Pieces of Me by Darlene Ryan

 

The third time Evan hit me I left. Evan said God talked to him. I don’t think he did. If God did talk to people, I didn’t see how he would choose Evan with his thin, bloodless lips and pinched face that never smiled. And I knew there was no way God would tell Evan to slap me across the mouth.

Maddie is living on the streets, trying to get by, protect herself and make enough to get a place to stay and find a way to get back to school. When she meets Q, she is wary, but welcomes his friendship. And then she meets Dylan, a six-year-old boy, living on the streets with with his family. When Dylan’s father asks Maddie to watch the boy for a while, she is happy to help. But Dylan’s parents don’t come back; and Maddie and Q are left looking after him. Trying to make a life together and care for her makeshift family, Maddie finds that maybe she has to ask for help.


My Thoughts/Review:

Honestly, I really thought that this book was going to be a lot different. I thought that the main character, Maddie, was going to bash Jesus for all he was worth, because of the way the story began. I put off reading it because of that first little bit, right in the beginning, that made me think that I was gonna have to be all, "That's my Jesus!" But, thankfully, I read a little past that first bit, and I was immediately hooked into the story.

I couldn't stop. This book was so entirely captivating, so real, that I just couldn't put it down. It was physically impossible for me to leave this book for very long, and I'm kind of happy about that, because it's just what I needed.

Maddie was a stand-offish, head strong, sarcastic homeless girl, that for what it's worth, came almost a full 180 throughout the book, until she was semi-sweet, and not as uneasy about trusting people. After all, she trusted Q almost instantly, which gives me an honest idea about how long it took to figure out how they were going to meet (Read: No time at all. Maddie trusts him so quickly that it scares me.)

I, for one, do not go off and sleep in cars with people I've never met. (Scary.) This just goes to show you how much are views have been skewed by popular culture. (No, boys who like you do not sneak into your room and watch you while you sleep. That's just creepy.)

Ok, now on to Q. (What kind of a name is Q?!?) Honestly, I loved Q from the very beginning though, so that goes to show you that my views are skewed too. Q seemed very easy-going in the first half, but when we get towards the middle, he starts to get a little edgy, and it kind of made me wonder what Q was running from. We never get any background story on Q, so I would really love to know. Is Q going to have his own book?

I don't know. All I know is that in spite of it's little problems (Read: My weird obsession with trusting weirdos.) I still loved every single sentence of it, because it captivated every little piece of my heart.

*ARC won on Librarything. ♠♠♠♠
Favorite Quote:
A thousand Epic quotes were within this novel, but it won't be released until....... September 1, 2012