Firstly, I'd like to thank Netgalley and Penguin Books UK for the eARC for an honest review. I also found the audiobook on Libby (the library app).

This is a coming of age story that follows Neena through a really rough part of her life after her brother goes missing over a year ago. We see Neena struggle to come to terms with what happened and trying to stay the perfect child for her parents. There are also the cultural pressures as a British - Pakistani child and her parents had a big role in this book and they felt very real and at the forefront throughout the book. Her parents are overprotective and fearful that Neena is following the same path as her brother. You can see how their fear has the opposite affect and makes Neena want to push back.

Neena isn't the most loveable character I've come across but most teenagers aren't - fat shaming her mother on occasions and ditching old friends who refuse to follow the rebellious route with her but we watch her go through a mental health crisis and I felt such pain for her as seemingly everyone stood against her. As we follow this story we can see that Neena is an unreliable narrator as she wades through her psychotic break imagining things that we find out never happened - seeing people that aren't there. The fear. The loneliness. This book really sheds light on serious mental health crises in teenagers and shows the positive nature of using a combination of treatments rather than the usual medication or therapy with a fits all approach.

This is a heavy read that I feel is a book many should read especially teenagers of Neena's age but also parents and teachers who are the adults that guide them through the early years. I'm so glad I read this and hope to read more books of a similar genre in the future.

I liked the premise of this dealing with a mental health issue that I didn’t particularly understand, I enjoyed some of the storyline but it didn’t engage me as much as I hoped

I will not be giving feedback on this book as I couldn’t really get into it but I think others may enjoy it.

Thank you to the publisher for my eARC copy of this book. Unfortunately I didn’t love this book and therefore didn’t finish, I just didn’t connect with this one. Not for me, sorry.

This is heartbreakingly written by the author

Deals with immense sadness and mental health problems and how you can go completely off the rails

Highly recommended

Never read a book from this author, though the writing style is great and easy to get in to which is a plus for me. The characters can be a little self destructive but pretty relatable so I wasn't too upset about it. As this was related to mental health it was understandable as to how the characters ended up as they did.

Good read, did not take me long to finish. People should certainly support this author.

Unfortunately this book just did not grip me and I did not finish it. Other readers may enjoy this one more

Really enjoyed this booked had never read this author before and will not be the last time. now looking for more by this author

I think this book holds a lot of potential in directing attention to mental health in younger kids but I found it hard to read. There is a lot of chaos constantly and I was unsure of what was happening.
Although I think it helped understand the mental space of those suffering, I was unable to invest any emotion into the outcome given the self-destructive behaviour that all the lead characters constantly place themselves in. I may not be the target audience for this, and maybe the resistance to the narrative could be attributed to that as well.
The writing flowed well and the characters were vivid , which helped me finish the book

A good read, but I sometimes struggled to connect to the character. And with a book of this genre and topic, it’s important that you can connect with the main character. I liked the writing style and I will definitely look out for more books by this author. Overall I enjoyed this one, but it wasn’t amazing.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

Great book regarding the struggles of menta heath and living in a life with different views on culture. Throughly enjoyed this read and was a very personal stories with lots of moments which make you think!

Wow this felt like such an important read. It touches on huge topics such as grief, loss, depression, anxiety, romance and fundamentally psychosis.

I really enjoyed reading a book that wasnt scared to cover these topics. Mental health is being talked about more and more which is refreshing. I also loved the style of this story and read it in a few days. Highly recommend.

The Million Pieces of Neena Gill absolutely blew me away. Telling the story of a girl called Neena who suffers a psychotic break after her brother Akash leaves her, this is a powerful novel tackling mental health in a very sensitive way.

Due to the fact that Neena is suffering from psychosis, she is an unreliable narrator. You’ll find yourself questioning what you’re reading as Neena begins to doubt her own sanity, living scenes which are later revealed to have taken place in her imagination, and almost everything you think you know will be flipped on its head at one point or another.


There are so many things I absolutely loved about this novel. When the story begins Neena is taking prescribed anti-depressants, but she stops taking them because she believes that her mother is ashamed of her. Eventually Neena is medicated, taught CBT and undergoes therapy, showing that often a combination of treatments is often needed to have the biggest impact. That’s utterly realistic, and I loved the fact that there was no ‘one size fits all’ miracle cure in this story.

Cultural pressures are a huge part of this novel, but Emma Smith-Barton makes a concerted effort to tackle the presumption that all of the pressures faced are cultural. There’s a very eye-opening scene in which Neena is talking to a therapist, who suggests she may be interpreting her parents’ actions through a cultural lens when they might just be reacting the same way that any worried parents would. I’ve seen a lot of novels which have tackled the overbearing Asian parent stereotype (specifically British-Pakistani in this book) but none of which have actually posited the question as to whether it’s just a parent stereotype regardless of background, and that made me look at a few other books I’ve read recently in a completely different way.

Neena’s parents are three-dimensional characters with their own plot, which is a novelty in itself! So often the parents in YA are only there to react to their child’s actions, and I loved the fact that Neena’s parents felt so realistic. They are also struggling to accept life without Akash, and although they take their frustrations out on Neena at the beginning – believing that she’s following the same path as her brother and is going to end up leaving them as well – they undergo their own character development and are far more sympathetic towards her mental state by the end of the novel.

This book isn’t perfect – there are a few instances in the first half of the novel where Neena fat-shames her mother – so this is more of a 4.5 star novel, but I feel as though the good thoroughly outweighs the bad in this instance.

The Million Pieces of Neena Gill is Emma Smith-Barton’s debut novel, and I am very excited to see what she writes next.

Decent read, but felt a bit mediocre in writing style. I didn't feel like I understood all the choices the main character made, but also certain facts were hammered down our throats and I wasn't a fan of this.

I am in charge of our Senior School library and am looking for a diverse array of new books to furnish their shelves with and inspire our young people to read a wider and more diverse range of books as they move through the senior school. It is hard sometimes to find books that will grab the attention of young people as their time is short and we are competing against technology and online entertainments.
This was a thought-provoking and well-written read that will appeal to our readers across the board. It had a really strong voice and a compelling narrative that I think would capture their attention and draw them in. It kept me engrossed and I think that it's so important that the books that we purchase for both our young people and our staff are appealing to as broad a range of readers as possible - as well as providing them with something a little 'different' that they might not have come across in school libraries before.
This was a really enjoyable read and I will definitely be purchasing a copy for school so that our young people can enjoy it for themselves. A satisfying and well-crafted read that I keep thinking about long after closing its final page - and that definitely makes it a must-buy for me!

A story of love, loss and mental health. A profound insight into psychosis.

Neena is really struggling with the disappearance of her brother Akash, her families demands in her both personally and culturally that things start to spin out of control, deprecate to know what happened to her brother in the night of his disappearance and with her mental health quickly spiralling Nenna finds herself trusting no one

*** ARC provided by Netgalley via the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ***

Honestly, this is one of the best books I have read this year!

This book deals with loss, grieving and mental health in such an amazing way. It's hard not to see yourself in Neena and root for her to hold together her million pieces whilst falling apart.

Neena is a conscientious student, a loving daughter and sister with a bright future ahead of her. We join her following the disappearance of her brother 10 months ago. She's desperate to find out what happened to him and starts acting out in ways that mirror her brothers behaviour and in a way seems to make her feel more connected with him. I don't want to go into too much details but whatever you look for in a book I think there is a version of it here...mystery/romance/engaging characters etc.

I'll be recommending this to anyone who'll listen!

Interesting perspective of the slow breakdown of a teenager, spiralling through depression, anxiety, bereavement and mental health problems. You could feel the heartache even though at times you wanted to grab the narrator and say, "No! don't do that!". The own voices discussions around stigma were particularly poignant within this story. The messy style of this book suited the way we can imagine Neena's mental state was at that time, and I did like the fact the book also included some rebuilding.

A great new novel to add to the ranks of excellent depictions of mental health in YA. This story explores grief and how much it can affect your mind. It shows Neena's spiral into complete breakdown in a slow gradual way, building up symptoms and issues, going unnoticed by those around her until it's too late.

I love how deeply it delves into how the mind can trick you. How it can tell you things that you know can't be true, but still you believe them. The way Neena got so utterly convinced that her brother was helping her finish her paintings, the way that they were better when she woke up to them finished.

It was good to see a mental health book that really highlights the taboos surrounding mental health and discussion of it. The way Neena's mother doesn't leave the house but won't talk about it, pretending that everything is normal. The way she treats Neena's medication, hiding them away and treating them like a dirty little secret that she shouldn't tell people around.

I also loved the cultural aspects. The descriptions of food made my mouth water!