A review by jenibus
Shiny Broken Pieces by Sona Charaipotra

3.0

I really enjoyed the first book and this one wasn't all that different than Tiny Pretty Things, but Gigi's progression into a mean girl herself depressed me, although I fully agree that said progression made sense within the story. The mystery aspect of who pushed Gigi in book one is a nice driving force when going between the different POVs, but overall I felt exhausted by how cruel and backstabby everyone is. I understand that is somewhat the point of the book and feel bad faulting it for doing what it set out to accomplish, but after a while it just depressed me to get nothing but once again escalating revenge plots from one girl to another. In Tiny Pretty Things, you had Gigi's optimism and more trusting spirit as a shining beacon amidst all of the jealousy and one-upsmanship, but due to how life threatening everything became for her, that spirit has been broken and is just as warped and twisted as everyone else.

The characters were amazing but I just wanted to sit everyone down and be like WE ARE TALKING THROUGH ALL THIS AND Y'ALL ARE FORCED TO BE HONEST BECAUSE IF YOU ALL UNDERSTOOD WHAT EVERYONE WAS DEALING WITH YOU'D MAYBE NOT BE SO HORRIBLE AS YOU ARE PLEASE BE BETTER, YOU ALL ARE WONDERFUL GIRLS WHO DESERVE HAPPINESS BUT YOU'RE SABOTAGING YOUR CHANCES AT THAT DUE TO JEALOUSY AND THE CUTTHROAT ENVIRONMENT YOU ARE IN.