To Pieces by Kati Rocky
Publisher: Tempus Press
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Length: Full Length (223 pages)
Age Recommendation: 16+
Heat Level: Sensual
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

To friends and family Jane seemed like a normal teen… until one day she didn’t…

Jane (aka Plain Jane) has always known she was different inside, and not in a good way. This has driven her to her construct her life as a solid B, for average, person and to carefully follow the rules of her high school hierarchy. But, when she undergoes her first bipolar episode and becomes acutely manic, she thumbs her nose at that hierarchy and begins a campaign to revolutionize her high school and rise up against its stifling social norms – and shake up the school she does. She becomes the most talked about student and no longer cares what anyone thinks of her as her over-the-top, comedic antics play out in public. Her mission culminates with an outrageous school presidential election speech and subsequent hospitalization.

Once Jane has come down from the mania and is released from the psychiatric hospital, she is humiliated by what she’s done and descends into suicidal depression. Now she’ll never fit in again. She’ll forever be known as the giant freak she’s always believed she was. And she’s ruined a burgeoning romance with the biggest crush she’s ever had. Making matters worse, she also discovers a devastating and dark family secret that her absent, indifferent mother has been harboring.
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Jane crawls her way back from the ledge and begins the healing process, but she won’t return to school, where she’s certain she’ll be the biggest outcast ever. But, a chance encounter with a former schoolmate leads her to reassess that decision – and her whole life.

Is she truly all that different from “normal” teenagers? Did her campaign actually change her high school? Did she change
lives? Is her mother the unloving narcissist she’d always believed she was?

Mental illness is no laughing matter.

I appreciated how much time the author spent showing the audience what it was like for Jane to experience her first bipolar episode. Since it was written in the first person, everything Jane went through had a deeply personal touch to it. There were times when I was as puzzled as she was about what was really going on due to how her disease was affecting her that particular day. This was a good thing, though, since it gave me a great deal of sympathy for what it must be like for someone to experience a manic episode while not really understanding what was happening to them.

This book had an incredibly large cast of characters. I found it hard to keep track of who everyone was and how they were connected to Jane. This was especially true for the people who played a small role in her life and who only showed up occasionally. There were so many of them that I simply couldn’t keep everyone straight. It would have been helpful to have a character list to refer to so I could pay more attention to the plot.

The plot twists were well written and fit into the storyline nicely. While I did see some of them coming in advance, this didn’t make it any less enjoyable to follow along and find out if my predictions turned out to be correct. There were times when Ms. Rocky surprised me, too, with developments that I hadn’t figured out would happen before they were revealed.

To Pieces should be read by anyone who has bipolar disorder or has ever wondered what it is like to live with this disease.