All the Broken Pieces

November 15, 2012
This interesting story of a girl who can't remember her earlier life (or perhaps lives) ends up as science fiction but works best as a portrait of a girl's first encounters with high school relationships and romance. Liv's physician parents tell her that she's never before been to school. She wouldn't know; a car crash wiped out her memory. But she keeps hearing voices and remembering scenes from the lives, apparently, of two different girls whose voices intrude into her daily life at inopportune times. Nevertheless, she struggles to fit in with the students at her new high school. At first, she falls into the popular crowd, although alpha girl Sabrina grows increasingly hostile toward her when Liv makes friends with Sabrina's old boyfriend, Spencer. Spencer is sympathetic to Liv, but he has problems of his own that cause him to behave in a mercurial fashion toward her. Once her up-and-down relationship with Spencer finally grows into a romance and the two can work together, Liv at last confronts her past. Madsen presents a storyline that, if implausible at its techno-thriller resolution, seems entirely acceptable leading up to that point. Liv's high school relationships, especially her conflicts with the popular girls and her first dealings with romance, ring nicely true. Intriguing. (Romance/thriller. 12-16)

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