Piecing Me Together 
Author: Renée Watson
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Release date: 1st March 2018
Pages: 261 pages
R.R.P: $14.99
Jade is a girl striving for success in a world that seems like it's trying to break her.
She knows she needs to take every opportunity that comes her way. And she has: every day Jade rides the bus away from her friends to a private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities.
But some opportunities Jade could do without, like the mentorship programme for "at-risk" girls. Just because her mentor is black doesn't mean she understands where Jade is coming from. Why is Jade always seen as someon who needs help? Someone people want to fix? But with a college scholarship promised at the end of it, how can Jade say no?
Jade feels like her life is made up of hundreds of conflicting pieces. Will it ever fit together? Will she ever find her place in the world? More than anything Jade just wants the opportunity to be real, to make a difference.
My review
Thoughts on the book: Piecing Me Together is the latest novel from Renée Watson that centres around the main character Jade who is a smart young woman of colour who despite her socioeconomic status is attending a private school that she has worked her butt off to get into and continues to work her bum off to stay at. The school offers so many opportunities and the main one that drew her to the school was the Study Abroad program where students get to go overseas and experience another culture while helping underprivileged people. When Jade's mum tells her that her guidance counsellor wants to see her on her first day back of the new school year jade knows it must be about the program but how wrong she was. Instead she has been placed in a mentorship program for 'At-Risk' girls. Jade is de estates and doesn't even want to do the program at all but there is a shining light in completing it, when it is completed she gets a collage scholarship which would help her immensely. So she begins the program with low hopes of helping at all and is seems that may be the case as her mentor doesn't even show up to the first gathering. But when she does eventually meet her mentor they seem to hit it off with a few speed bumps along the way. Little does Jade know that the program may end up meaning more to her than she Thzn she may think. Will Jade finally learn to stand up for herself and stop letting people get away with things that they have in the past and finally let people see who the real Jade is?
First off as always a massive thank you to Sonia from Bloomsbury Australia for my review copy of Piecing me Together. Words can not express how much I liked this book. Piecing me Together has all the vibes of following in the footsteps of The Hate U Give with the exploration into the difficulti d people of colour face against not only the white community but also amongst their own community where they expect to be understood and excepted. I was once agin made to open my eyes to the unfairness that is plagued on people of colour and they way everyone treats them. I have taken a real liking to reading books similar to this and am finding that I'm needing to change things that I myself do.
What really makes this book fantastic too is that there is no love interest at all. It's all about Jade and how she handLes the relationships that she has with her teachers, her family and her friends. You get to experience the difference between her white friends and her friends of colour and the difference is mind boggling. I wish I could be friends with Jade and tell her what an amazing girl she is and how much of an impact she is making on the people surrounding her. I know that I can't wait to read more from Renée Watson especially if they are written like Piecing Me Together was.
Rating: 5/5
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