Review : Another Little Piece by Kate Karyus Quinn
Another Little Piece by Kate Karyus Quinn
Pages : 419
Genre : Horror, YA
Stand alone
My Rating : 4/5
About the Book :
A year later, Annaliese is found wandering down a road hundreds of miles away. She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know how she got there. She only knows one thing: She is not the real Annaliese Rose Gordon.
Now Annaliese is haunted by strange visions and broken memories. Memories of a reckless, desperate wish . . . a bloody razor . . . and the faces of other girls who disappeared. Piece by piece, Annaliese’s fractured memories come together to reveal a violent, endless cycle that she will never escape—unless she can unlock the twisted secrets of her past.
My Thoughts :
My expectations for Another Little Piece were sort of mild; a while ago I was convinced to give it a try after reading Wendy’s review at Midnight Garden, but still I wasn’t sure whether it would be a book for me. Things turned out well though; the book was one strange little piece of horror, one of the best of the genre I have read in a while.
Though their execution and story are different, Another Little Piece reminded me, for its unsettling voice and its uncomfortable atmosphere, of the very creepy Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. From the start, you feel that something is amiss with Annaliese. She’s not exactly cold, but she’s not empathic either. There is a distance between her and the reader, that weirdly mirrors the distance she feels with her new self. And this strangeness is exactly what makes you want to know more.
“Like Birds, my laughter fled. One second there; the next, nothing but distant specks in the sky. (p. 99)
Another Little Piece is also a gorgeously written book. The author creates with her words a wonderful imagery that kept me glued to the page as much as the story. I also found her perception of human nature to be very honest, sweet and sour all at once. There’s romance, but it’s not in the traditional YA sense of it; it’s complex and different, with Dex having his own questionings and identity.
While I loved what I experienced through the novel, I was left a little unsure about its ending; I felt the last hundred pages dragged a little, and then everything concluded too neatly and too fast. What I did like though, was that while Annaliese’s story gets all the answers it deserves, the mechanics of it all still have a bit of mystery to it. Like in life, not everything gets explained.
Overall, Another Little Piece was a win for me. It’s weird, and different, and bloody at times, and heartfelt at others. It doesn’t exactly fit the traditional mold of horror, yet it is very reminescent of some of Stephen King’s work – which is a plus for me. It won’t be a novel for everyone, but readers of the weird should definitely give it a try!
I’m glad you enjoyed this one. I’m not a fan of horror, though, so I’ll probably skip it.