Very in Pieces
by Megan Frazer Blakemore
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: September 29th 2015
Very Sales-Woodruff is done being a good girl. Done being the only responsible one in a family that’s unraveling. Done being the obliging girlfriend in a relationship that’s sinking. Done saying no to what she wants—like Dominic, her rebellious classmate.
With her mom’s drinking, her dad’s extended absences from home, and her younger sister, Ramona, running wild, the path Very has always seen for herself doesn’t seem to matter anymore. At the same time, Very’s grandmother, a poet known less for her work and more for her exploits with the likes of Andy Warhol and Arthur Miller, is slipping away.
If everything else can fall to pieces, why can’t she?
Very is a math genius and so she sees things in a very analytical way. A square on a canvas is just a square on a canvas. As she spends time with her grandmother in her final days she starts to see that she might have allowed herself to play a character in a story her family wrote. She does what is expected but she isn’t sure what she wants. We see her grow throughout the book not in one giant leap but with small changes.
Very’s family is what the story really centers around. She has her grandmother who is this famous poet, her mother who drinks her problems, her father who is absent and checked out of the family and then her sister Ramona. It goes through the way they handle the grief but also shakes out some other family issues that were floating just below the surface. They all have things to work out.
There are two boys but that’s not really the focus of the story. It’s more like the represent the safe option for Very and the unknown option for her.
I really enjoyed the way Very grows and how the story revolves around her family mainly. There were times it felt a little slow but I was intrigued enough to keep reading. It’s a great book to read to break away from the norm and I finished feeling satisfied with the story.
