From Goodreads: At her dying mother’s
request, Claire dumps Jared, the only boy she’s ever loved. Left with a
broken family and a broken heart, Claire is furious when she discovers
that her biggest regret became Jared’s big break. While Jared is
catapulted into rock-star status, another piece of Claire’s heart
crumbles every time his song plays on the radio. The summer after
her senior year, it’s been months since the big break-up, and Claire is
just trying to keep her head down and make it through a tense trip to
the beach with her family. But when Jared shows up, and old feelings
reignite, can Claire and Jared let go of the past? Or will they be stuck
singing the same old refrain?
My Rating: 2.5 hearts
Thoughts
on the Novel: I normally tend to complain if a novel has too much drama,
but in the case of Another Little Piece of My Heart by Tracey Martin, I was
mentally prepared for it. How could a book not be full of drama when the main
character’s ex has written a song about her?! Sadly, Another Little Piece of My
Heart didn’t live up to my expectations.
I think the lack of drama in Another Little Piece of My Heart can be
attributed to the writing style, which forces the reader to spend large chunks
of time in Claire’s head. As a result, you get a lot of Claire reminiscing
about her past – and thereby, lots of telling rather than showing.
This wouldn’t have been such a big
issue if I had liked Claire more. Unfortunately, I found Claire to be whiny,
and disliked that she blamed others for making her miserable instead of
reflecting on how she herself is partly to blame for her situation. For
example, she spends quite a bit of time regretting her breakup with Jared and
blames her parents for this decision. Sure, her parents may have disapproved of
Jared, but it was her decision to ultimately break up with him!
I also didn’t understand why Claire
was still pining over Jared after he wrote a song about her. I know that the
two were attracted to each other because of their shared love of music; but
besides that, I have no idea what other things they had in common. It would
have been nice if their relationship had been more fleshed out so that I could
see why no other guy was worth Claire’s time.
A novel that had the potential to be
entertaining, Another Little Piece of My Heart was released by
Harlequin Teen in December 2013.
Comments
About the Cover: I like its simplicity.
Note: I only found out that
Another Little Piece of My Heart was a retelling of Persuasion after I finished
it. If you’re looking for a great retelling of Persuasion, I’d recommend
reading Diana Peterfreund’s For Darkness Shows the Stars instead.
In exchange for an honest review, this book was received from the publisher (Harlequin Teen) for free via NetGalley.
