Every Little Piece of Me

[Audiobook]
By: Amy Jones
Narrated by: Therese Plummer and Tavia Gilbert
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Dates Listened: 
Length:  11 hrs 36 min
Source:  Overdrive

Why did I read it?
Work was quiet so I went looking for a random book to listen to.  This one was by a Canadian author and mostly took place in Canada's east coast so I fell for Canada.

Every Little Piece of Me follows two women who are in the spotlight in their own right: Mags and Ava.  Mags is the lead singer of a rock band she formed with her eventual husband.  When they finally make it big, tragedy strikes and Mags is left to navigate the world of music amidst her grief and anger.  Ava is, reluctantly, a cast member of her family's reality show in which they run a bed and breakfast in Nova Scotia.  She grows up on the show and watches it broadcast her families ups and downs as it takes a heavy toll on them.  

They advertise this book as the first time they meet, Mags saves Ava's life and the second time they meet Ava saves Mag's.  Everything in the middle they are pretty well separate.  In all honestly, I did not like either character's story.  We go back and forth between each character and watch them grow up and into these broken women who need to save each other.  I guess I'm for the idea of women helping women, but the stories were not great.  It actually felt like both of them were just being dragged along as victims and all we could do was blame the media but don't worry, women support women.  It felt really forced and I don't know if it is the best showing of women empowerment.  We can blame the media for a lot of what happened to these young women, but they did a lot to themselves and were not just victims. 

It felt like the author was throwing grit onto grit and trying to make this as edgy as possible.  Going into it, I thought it would be cool to be in the brains of a reality start and a rock star, but it was all just...blegh.  I think this book was supposed to be heart-wrenching and throw some blame on how the media treats women but it just did not get me there.

I don't have anything bad to say about the narration.  They were fine.  If anything, they almost sounded a little too similar and if they didn't start each chapter with the character's name I would have been lost. 

Rating: 2/5 (This makes it to two mostly for the first few chapters and Canada)

Recommendation: I don't recommend this book.  There has to be better Canadian fiction than this.  There has to be better women empowerment, media shaming, edgy books.  There just has to be.  

Also I would give this book an 18+ because some of the content is not appropriate for high school (in my opinion)