Ten Thousand Skies Above You (Firebird, 2)

I'm really trying to get myself to stop starting series and then not finishing them until years later! Lol. It's a curse! I read Claudia Gray's A Thousand Pieces of You as an ARC wayyyy back in 2014. So yeah, diving into Ten Thousand Skies Above You about 6 years later was rough! Luckily, I did find a recap online that was super helpful! I wish there were more than 2 bookish recaps sites!Anyway in this one we learn a lot has happened off page with the results of Marguerite's father being kidnapped and believed to be dead and the whole Wyatt Conley trying to control the time-traveling world and wanting Marguerite to come work for him. Lots of chaos and we get to know all of this through multiple flashbacks. I can't remember if this happened in the first book, all these flashbacks, but it was pretty tough sometimes. They almost seemed to blend right into the story and it took a bit of remembering that I was in a flashback, not current time. And then these flashbacks went on for quite a few pages and when I finally did come back to the here and now, I almost forgot what was happening there because that occasionally happened after I stopped reading for a day. So, it was definitely a challenge to get going with this one.Marguerite learns that Conley has splintered Paul's soul into four pieces and unless she does what he tells her, she will never be able to put her Paul back together again, he'd remain splintered across multiple universes. Conley wants her to go to two different universes and destroy her parents' work on the Firebird technology that each one is working on. But if anything is done to aid Conley, Marguerite wants no part of it.The other catch is, if she doesn't help him, not only will Paul's soul remain splintered, but Theo will remain damaged as well. He's been hooked onto a drug known as Nightthief, created by the Triad. Basically this happened when the Triadverse Theo took over Theo's body for such a long time and committed the crimes and basically made the "real" Theo's life quite difficult to get back to.I forgot how confusing things could be when you're traveling to multiple universes where you and your friends and family exist and some things remain the same and other things are drastically different. And then there's always the "is this the REAL person or this universe's person?" So yeah, confusing.I feel like the struggles I vaguely recall having with the first book remain prevalent with picking up the second book 6 years later. Lol. There was a great deal of physics talk and just wow. As an English major this pretty much baffled me. I was merely reading the words, but thankfully, they are done in a way that's not entirely confusing, but as I said, it can be overwhelming at times. Especially in the beginning...and when you start reading really early in the morning before work starts! Lol.The pacing to this one was pretty average. There's a great deal of tension going on because you never really know who you can trust and if now is the right time to trust them. And then of course, Marguerite has a looming deadline with Conley to complete her "mission" and then she still needs to rescue Paul entirely and put him back together again.Then there are the personal complications that start to come about with this one. I was a bit miffed that once again Paul and Marguerite were separated for the length of the novel. All other Pauls she interacts with in the other universes don't count. There's great debates with Marguerite about whether this universe's Paul is like her Paul or something like that. But to me, they weren't her Paul. They might be like him in some ways, but they are not fundamentally her Paul, they are not the one she fell completely in love with. They may have some of the same qualities, but they are not him. So basically we had yet another book where the starcrossed lovers were separated. Again (and yes, I know they weren't really lovers at the start of first book. We were led to believe Paul was a murderer, but I digress.).So the romance, was complicated to say the least. There were flashback moments of romance, so there was that. And then of course, we get that hint of a possible love triangle, but it wasn't really anything to worry about.That ending though. Whoa! Things happened just before the explosiveness, things that would set the course for the final novel and I knew that one was going to be an intense read! But this last added bit that happened towards the end was shocking...and yet, it came to me to wonder why it never happened before to begin with! Lol.There's a certain kind of magic to waiting to read a series until its completed (ignoring the fact that I am wayyy late to finishing this one!). I am glad that I don't have to wait for the conclusion to this one but omg why did I wait so long to read this?! Ten Thousand Skies Above You was a bit challenging for me, much like its predecessor, but it still has a nice flow to it that kept me hooked from the beginning and eager to see it to the shocking end! Can't wait for the series conclusion now!Overall Rating 4/5 stars

5 MULTIVERSAL STARSTO READ OR NOT TO READ...This series, for me, is a must read. DO NOT PASS IT UP. I will admit that I added it to my TBR list and passed it over once or twice. When I finally did read the first book, A Thousand Pieces Of You, I finished it in one day and immediately pre-ordered the sequel. Be prepared... it's my review so I can be pretentious if I want to. You've been warned.This book is extremely well-written, with complex characters that I couldn't help but love – no matter what multiverse they landed in. The concept of alternate universes has, up until now, been so abstract to me, that I never really even considered it enough to ponder it too deeply. So, naturally, I hadn't considered the complexity that with each jump into a new totality; not only are the plot twists are limitless, they can each draw you in as deeply as the first one you fell in love with.The love I have for this series cannot be expressed in just one review. This series has all the endearing qualities of Quantum Leap and the intricacy of Cloud Atlas. It could literally... and literar-ily (just go with it).. never end. I do not know how far Gray plans to take us in this journey, but I can honestly say that I would not miss one single word of it!THE RUNDOWN(From book description at Amazon...If it ain't broke...)Ever since she used the Firebird, her parents' invention, to cross through to alternate dimensions, Marguerite has caught the attention of enemies who will do anything to force her into helping them dominate the multiverse—even hurt the people she loves. She resists until her boyfriend, Paul, is attacked, and his consciousness is scattered across multiple dimensions.The hunt for each splinter of Paul's soul sends Marguerite racing through a war-torn San Francisco, the criminal underworld of New York City, and a glittering Paris where another Marguerite hides a shocking secret. Each dimension brings Marguerite one step closer to rescuing Paul. But with every trial she faces, she begins to question the one constant she's found between the worlds: their love for each other.MY TWO CENTSFor a while, and I'm talking at least halfway through this book, it occurred to me that our very talented author was, without a doubt, trying to separate Miss Marguerite from (one of my absolute favorite book boyfriends) Paul Markov.... but then it dawned on me, this book's multiverse jumps are not governed by the adored characters from the first book. They are directed by the antagonist and nearly all-around weenie, Wyatt Conley. When I thought about it that way, the general unrest I felt deep within my soul subsided... but not completely... I just love Paul too much! So, whether or not she and Paul would end up together was something I had to forge on through the pages and find out. Oh the anticipation!I will say that it feels like this book was written just for me. Not that I'm the only person that will ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT... but just that Claudia Gray led me right around by the nose. I followed willingly through each of the twists and turns and what-ifs. When I wanted to smack Marguerite for not getting the point of what seemed obvious from the outside looking in, I felt frustrated. When she came to realizations, I rejoiced.Another thing I want to praise the author for, is keeping me so engrossed in the people from the very first moment in the next dimension. The further I read and the more information given, when the next twist comes up I can't help but feel like the 'science' of it all and the possibility of changing the playing field should occur to me. But I remain so razzle-dazzled by these characters and the humanity of it all that I'm able to be surprised by the next turn in the physics of the situation.In the end, I love the story and the characters just like Ms. Gray wants me to. This book... this series.. is for me, a grand adventure. Thank you Claudia Gray.Just so you know, for me, there is no love triangle. For me.. It always Paul... In any dimension of the multiverse.

There's lots to like about this action packed sequel.Marguerite is chasing across multiple dimensions looking for Paul Markov, her lover, who has gone and gotten himself splintered (effectively his soul is in tiny little pieces and manifesting as many different versions of Paul in many different dimensions). She needs to track down the Four Paul's and put him back together again. Of course, with Marguerite it isn't as easy as it sounds because with each dimension comes a new role for Marguerite, and Paul, to play and discovering who is friend and foe without blowing your cover is pretty hard to do! Especially with cunning Wyatt Conley trying to get in on the action.I loved the various dimensions. Whilst it might seem tedious to keep jumping from one scenario, and place, to another and going through the same routine of figuring out who she is in each place, it actually is really fun. I loved discovering the different paths her character might have taken but also liked how the author showed some personality traits stay constant in us regardless of that. Interestingly, Marguerite isn't always with Paul and this throws a few spanners in the works - I loved how marguerite questioned which version of Paul she truly loved (because let's face it, Russian Paul was clearly the winner for us readers!) and whether the actions of one version of a person reflect their character in another dimension. It's a bit mind trippy. In a great way.Sadly there were some failings for me. Marguerite is just a bit of a drip. Sure she's crafty enough to escape from sticky situations, that's fun. But she's so obsessed with love and destiny that it all makes me want to puke. Or punch her in the face. It's just too much!Equally I found the explanations of a few plot twists a little lack lustre and a bit too simple. Sometimes it seemed like the author just came up with the ideas as she was writing instead of fleshing them out so they made logical sense. But I guess this keeps us on our toes.That cliffhanger though! It undoes all the annoyance I had somewhat. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray is the sequel to A Thousand Pieces of You, a book that I read last year but never got around to review (I promise a review of it is coming!). I thoroughly enjoyed A Thousand Pieces of You and although I’m not sure it wouldn’t have made it to my top ten books that I read last year it definitely had more to do with what else I had also read more than any failings on its part.So when I embarked on my read of Ten Thousand Skies Above You, I was really excited. That excitement carried me through about a third of the book before it quickly died down and was replaced by a heavy dose of disappointment. I shall warn that there probably will be spoilers below because angry/disappointed reviews are always hard to keep spoiler free.We join back with Marguerite whilst she is being chased through medieval-esque streets in another dimension’s Italy, accused of witchcraft—her parents are what passes for scientists in that world—and searching for Paul. It’s all rather exciting and enthralling and sets the pace as fast and intense. Until it promptly goes and crashes itself against the wall of back story explanation that interrupts the flow of what is going on. We get a lot of back story with very little substance, a lot of things that we could have been informed of quicker without losing the pace the medieval-verse set at the very beginning.Unfortunately, these first couple of chapters are pretty representative of the rest of the book.Dear Marguerite has to go hunting after Paul through the different dimensions again. The only difference is that instead of being believed to be a murdered Paul’s soul has been split in four and dumped in the bodies of four other Pauls. The bad guys at Triad did this so that Marguerite would finally accept to work for them (something they had tried to get her to do before by offering her lots of money, then threatening her as evil corporations are wont to do) and go to two other dimensions and destroy their Firebird projects. She’s bartered with them so that they’ll also give her a cure for the deadly toll that Night Thief addiction is starting to take on Theo’s body.So we won’t get to see any of Marguerite’s dimension Paul again for this. Which is really disappointing. We didn’t really get to know him in book one as he was stuck as a passenger aboard Lieutenant Markov’s body, and it seems that he isn’t being dealt a much better deal this time. Paul is the ultimate princess in distress character whose only purpose seems to be for other characters to have to go travelling to rescue him (even in book 1 as Marguerite technically rescues him from the Russia-verse after his Firebird is taken away), and as such his character seems non-existent. Idolised to almost unbearable extents by Marguerite (who seems so keen to forget how she felt about him just a few months ago), we never get to know the one who should be our Paul, and all the Pauls we encounter seem present to mainly fawn over/moon over Marguerite and eventually do little more than give her reasons (can we really call them reasons?) to question if she really knows her Paul after all.Theo is again Marguerite’s companion but this time it’s the actual Theo from her dimension. Despite realising that he is not the same person as the guy she travelled with before Marguerite keeps acting in ways as though he is exactly like that other Theo: selfish and likely to betray her. She keeps repeating how people are fundamentally all the same through each dimension without taking into account how Theo may be feeling about it.And that’s because Marguerite has changed. I remember the Marguerite of the first book being a little clueless, but overall a well-rounded character. I liked her. I might have never connected with her as much as I have with other heroines but she was nonetheless a likeable character. Well forget all about that, because this Marguerite has changed almost beyond recognition. In the time in between both books she has somehow become selfish and self-centered to a level that took me by surprise. She doesn’t once stop to think how her actions will affect the people around her, or the Marguerite whose life she has taken over, and is only focussed on what she wants and how she is the one who is always correct. Let’s add to this her quickness at judging every other world as ‘messed up’ one way or another as though her own dimension doesn’t have its own problems (and it probably does given it’s very close to our own and she lives in America), which just hammers home how much of a sheltered, entitled little while girl she is (her reaction to mafia Paul drives this home).When she lands in a dimension where Marguerite and Theo are together, she all but freaks out and tries to start the possibility of a relationship with that world’s Paul without caring how that’s going to leave everyone feeling. She is so convinced that she must be with Paul in every universe that she never stops and remembers that these universes exist to represent every possibility ever. And as we saw in book 1, there was definitely a possibility she could have been with Theo. In another universe, when she is faced with the darker side of Paul’s life, and what he could have become she completely freaks out and abandons Theo (who has just been shot, mind you) to go take refuge in the Russia-verse where she won’t have to face Paul.That’s where the book really started to go downhill for me. The entirety of Marguerite’s time in the Russia-verse is self-indulgent filler that adds literally nothing to the story bar making it all the more obvious how selfish Marguerite has become. When she realises the situation the Grand Duchess is in, Marguerite is horrified. But does she immediately leave to allow the Grand Duchess to take control of her life again, and make sure she doesn’t mess anything else up? Ah but of course not! Where else would she have the time to recover from having met a Paul that showed more of a dark side? And as Marguerite does not seem to understand that people can be shaped by how they are raised as well as their nature, she is melodramatically thinking she doesn’t want to see her Paul again and therefore doesn’t want to move on to the next world.When she finally does, we get to meet the version of Connolly that is behind everything that has been going on and the plot thickens by a layer. In that dimension, her sister was the perfect traveller but because of an accident she has been splintered into a thousand pieces. Her parents are, understandably, distraught and willing to do whatever it takes to get their daughter back, even if that means having to erase the existence of hundreds of worlds. The catch is that they need Marguerite to help with it. She once again gets onto her high horse and immediately refuses, thinking that her parents will ‘get over’ Josey’s loss eventually.That line about grief in the book made me almost put a hole through the ceiling. Marguerite dares to stand there saying how people learn to live with grief and eventually move on when through the entirety of the book it’s obvious that she hasn’t gotten over losing Lieutenant Markov from the Russia-verse, despite it not being her Paul. Yet, when other people’s grief interferes with her life, she is more than ready to tell them to get over it.Well done to the writer for representing the messed up way society treats those grieving without pointing out how unhealthy and messed up it is and instead making it seem ‘right’ as it comes from the person telling the story, someone we are supposed to identified with. Truly, bravo.So Marguerite refuses to work for them, even though I think we all know by this point that had it been her Paul she would destroy everything to get him back, and she runs off to get the last fragment of Paul’s soul. Queue the longest scene of them eventually talking, her telling him everything (and a lot of stuff she really didn’t need to, but sorry, she wanted someone else to share the guilt/tell her it wasn’t her fault), and him going all ‘I shouldn’t be with you, I can only hurt you’ because of what had happened to the Paul from that dimension. Now this would have been considerably more bearable if Paul had had any amount of characterisation before this point. Instead the scene feels like a long filler and I spent half of it wanting to yell at them both to get the hell back to their own worlds.When they finally do, Theo is there to greet Marguerite. Apart from that it’s not Theo and the book ends on what is to me the worse cliffhanger possible: Marguerite is taken over by her Evil Self from one of Triad’s dimensions.The bones of the story are still great. Hell, when is the idea of travelling to dimensions that can show an infinite amount of possibilities not exciting? Well I’ll tell you: when every world we come across portrays solely white cis straight characters. Every. Single. Time. Too many of the worlds are alike ours in most ways: there are no worlds where Paul and Theo are dating each other, where Marguerite has been adopted by parents that aren’t white, where she’s a lesbian, or maybe even a world where one of the cast is transgender. Nothing. There is nothing representative alternative people either, no goth Marguerite or punk Theo, no long-haired-poet-shirt-wearing Paul. Whenever something alternative comes up it’s really badly done: see Theo’s description from the Home Office-verse which sounds like he’s walked out of old 80’s dystopian movie crossed with The Tribe. And when something LGBT is finally mentioned it is to tell us that Evil Marguerite will also sleep with girls just because it’s fun to mess with people.Can we have some slow clapping please?So I really wanted to like this book, but it wasn’t meant to be. The idea of having to travel to different dimensions to gather back the pieces of someone was already pushing at what I like to read about (anime is about the only medium that has even made these kinds of quest storylines bearable and even then that’s usually because they don’t totally remove a member of the cast to do it). The ending pretty much put me off picking up the next book when it comes out because I just don’t trust Claudia Gray to not make this the most irritating thing ever, and the general lack of diversity to the cast was the final nail in this book’s coffin.I simply won’t stand there and excuse all white, all cis, all straight casts anymore. The world is made of more than that and if writer’s can’t be bothered to put it in their books they can expect to see more and more backlash from readers.Definitely not a book I would recommend, I definitely would not encourage any lovers of the first one to pick this one up. Stay with your good experience before it’s all shattered in more pieces than Josey’s soul, trust me.

Honestly I was so captured and hooked on this book. I love all the characters and the complexities of them. I love how Marguerite isn't the perfect protagonist and Paul isn't the perfect love interest. I love the incredible imaginations of the dimensions and how strong these characters are and brave and resilient. This was spectacular and easily one of my favourite series'. I wish icouj!d travel through dimensions.

I don’t know how to begin this review because I have so much to say. First of all, I was beyond excited when the book came out because I’ve been waiting for it. The first book was one of my favourite books in 2015 so I thought the next one will be as enticing as the first book.The book continues with Marguerite looking for Paul’s soul that has been splintered by the enemy while he was looking for Theo’s cure. In this book, the settings and situation are way more complex than it was in the first book. The theme of Marguerite saving Paul makes everything feels more dangerous and I just couldn’t stop reading because I need to know what was going to happen. The dimensions in this book are phenomenal. Claudia’s elaborate description of each dimension makes it all real and more exciting. I’m so glad that the Russiaverse still exists in this book because it was definitely my favourite dimension in the first book even though the drama was really shocking to me and I really want to know the continuation of it.One thing that I love about the book is how we got to see different sides of Paul. We now know who are his parents and why he is the way he is. And how even with all the revelation, Marguerite doesn’t stop loving Paul and refused to give up on her love for him. THEY ARE SO SWEET IT’S RIDICULOUS.Through the story, I was really sceptical of Theo. Considering what he did in the first book, I wasn’t sure if he’s an ally or an enemy. Although there was a lot of moment when I really believe that Theo is a good guy in the book since he proved it so many times. I do feel a little bad for him because he’s with the girl that he loves and he can’t do anything about it. I was genuinely happy for him when Marguerite realised that certain things about Theo and see that he’s a friend, at least for now.One shocking thing in this book for me is the revelation of what Josie and Conrad could have been. I certainly can’t wait for the third book and see if there’s any more development of these two because it is really unthinkable for me.The book is definitely a great sequel, even though I was frustrated because turns out there would be a third book and this one ends in cliff-hanger since I thought it was gonna be a duology. Oh well, I guess it’s not a bad thing to have another book to look forward to.

Really loved this book. Well written. Interesting. Intriguing. Imaginative. Gripping. As good as the first. Very unpredictable. Shame it finished on a cliff hanger, now I have to wait for the third instalment!!