Confessions of a Readaholic: The Half Life of Molly Pierce Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway

The Half Life of Molly Pierce Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway

The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno

Release Date: July 8, 2014
Publisher: HarperTeen
Rated: YA 14+
Format: eGalley
Source: Edelweiss
Buy: Amazon ● The Book Depository ● B&N ● iTunes ● Kobo
Goodreads ● Website

You take it for granted. Waking up. Going to school, talking to your friends. Watching a show on television or reading a book or going out to lunch.

You take for granted going to sleep at night, getting up the next day, and remembering everything that happened to you before you closed your eyes.

You live and you remember.

Me, I live and I forget.

But now—now I am remembering.

For all of her seventeen years, Molly feels like she’s missed bits and pieces of her life. Now, she’s figuring out why. Now, she’s remembering her own secrets. And in doing so, Molly uncovers the separate life she seems to have led…and the love that she can’t let go.

The Half Life of Molly Pierce is a suspenseful, evocative psychological mystery about uncovering the secrets of our pasts, facing the unknowns of our futures, and accepting our whole selves.

With the slightly eerie cover and the intriguing title, there was no doubt that I had to get my hands on this book. The Half Life of Molly Pierce was extraordinary. I was immediately captivated from the start, with the promise of a unique premise and unraveling the past, which sounded too good to pass up. It was a short read, and not much happened during the present action of the story, but the depth and style was incredible.

We don’t really learn too much about Molly’s character. I liked the distance between character and reader in this book because for once, due to the subject matter, it actually worked as a reflection of the events that occur during the book. I also enjoyed the narrative structure of the book– the literal sentence length was chopped and that also really made it seemed like a way to create an isolated atmosphere as well as a sharp tone to the novel. Character-wise there is a really big twist that comes along which I didn’t suspect at first, but then everything pieces together as past and present come to a close, and while Molly doesn’t really do much throughout the book except piece together what exactly has happened in the past year, it was a profound exploration into the subject matter (which I won’t mention because it’ll give the whole story away!).

The only problem I would have with this book would be that when the story did come to a close, everything seemed a little too convenient to be true. I don’t know whether or not it was just me and my lack of sleep trying to finish this book, because, trust me, it is very suspenseful, but things wrapped up pretty darn quickly. The book also deals with a lot of other issues other than the main subject matter, which again, I won’t mention due to the spoilery-ness of it all. Suicide, namely, as well as the classic bildungsroman novel-style of accepting oneself and coming to terms with who one really is.

The Half Life of Molly Pierce was remarkable, slowly leading to a shocking twist and terrifying realisation. A shining debut, Leno’s one-of-a-kind novel will be sure to enthral readers from the first word to the last.