Cover Image: Eight Pieces of Silva

Eight Pieces of Silva

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Member Reviews

This book is raw and real and really deals with the issues marginalised young people face today. The characters as always with Patrice, are her strongest point and the interaction between the characters is briliantly done.

Efffortlessly inclusive and tightly plotted I really enjoyed this.

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A modern and touching story, relating to family dynamics, grief, loss, and relationships. I found myself losing interest halfway through, but really enjoyed it as everything came together at the end. It felt very realistic, and I loved and hated characters, which is always a good thing when I read a book, I want to FEEL the relationships.

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This is the first YA novel by Patrice Lawrence I have read. It is about a mixed race, extended family. There are people in prison, a Mother’s death, step mother, father and sisters, lesbians, growing apart from best friends and a missing person. So many issues. This could so easily have been overdone but it was not.

The plot is told by the two step-sisters. Silva was supposed to be supervising Becks while their parents were away on their honeymoon. Becks followed the clues to find Silva. Becks learnt a great deal about herself through the book.

I think this will be a winner for Patrice Lawrence.

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I have read all of Patrice Lawrence's previous books and she is an author I'll continue to follow and make a point of reading, and an author who truly knows her audience.

That said, the extent to which I enjoy her books varies each time; I loved her last book Rose, Interrupted and thought it was her best yet, so I had very high hopes for this one and unfortunately it didn't quite live up to them.

Becks mum and new stepdad have set off on their honeymoon. She and stepsister Silva have been left in the family home, except Silva is missing. Becks sets out to find her and figure out what is going wrong.

The characters were really well-written. Becks especially, as our main narrator and central character, was very likeable and believable. The style it was written in, and the character's interests and dialogue felt like it really reflected the book's young readers too.

And I really liked the way the book featured both BAME and LGBTQ+ characters with neither of those things being the theme or subject of the book.

I was really drawn into the mystery of Silva's disappearance and I enjoyed seeing Becks put the pieces together, through this reflecting on the recent changes in her family and close friendships and on the relationship she and Silva have.

I also thought the way the novel uses this to explore different responses to grief and big life changes was very good - sensitively examining the effects these things can have on us.

Following on from this, I also really liked the way we begin unsure of Silva but get to see that the things said about her are true. It makes us question how quickly we judge others without really considering motive or mental health.

However, I didn't really get the whole significance of the 'eight pieces of Silva' - I get that there were in theory 8 clues for Becks to follow, but I don't feel this was a big part of the story. I certainly couldn't have told you there were 8 and it didn't feel important to the plot at all.

I also felt the mystery went from slowly unravelling (a little too slowly at times) to bring rather suddenly and tidily solved and sorted out. The ending jarred with me a bit.

However, it was an enjoyable read and there's no question Patrice Lawrence has done exactly what she does best - written a book addressing family, friendship and relationship issues so central to young people's lives, that feels hugely credible and reflective of its intended readers.

3.5 stars rounded up.

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Patrice Lawrence is one of the best and strongest voices in UK YA, and Eight Pieces of Silva is characteristically excellent. Sharp, vivid and true. A must for all readers of YA and beyond.

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I received this book free as an ARC from Net Galley. All opinions are my own.

This book may be categorised as a mystery; but the only mystery I had, was why this book had to be so bad.
Context. I am not a super picky reader. I read a ton of books and am generally nice in my reviews. Rarely do I read a book and then trash it. But this book just broke the mould. The description had me exited, a great cover and an apparently well reviewed author. But for me, this book was a down right mess (I apologise. I hate to be mean but the truth is the truth!)

First of all the grammar. This book was determined to do it all wrong. It was actually painful to read and can't really be excused. The narration was so filled with 'ain't no's' and horrific sentence structure I am at a loss. I assume this was to put across how our protagonist speaks, but for the love of God that is for dialogue, NOT NARRATION. It's a written novel and has to make at least a little sense. The punctuation was just as bad. The amount of questions that ended in full stops had me struck. Elementary writing. Did I accidentally receive the first draft by mistake? There were also a lot of formatting errors. This I would have forgiven as an ARC error but considering the writing it matched.

The protagonist was was so unlikable I wanted to punch her. I don't think that was the intent. Her speech aside, her thought process made no sense. She was so all over the place with strange priorities. One moment she's worried about her sister, then nah let's think about me instead, then suddenly and for no reason invested again. She would get jealous over friends money in weird ways and then casually stroll by homeless people and I'm supposed to think her relatable? No, Her sister was mildly interesting until that went south as well. No other characters feel worth mentioning, they all felt like props.

One of the things that filled me with an irrational rage were the REFERENCES. So this is a contemporary and you can expect a few pop culture references here and there right? That's fine but no. In every other sentence you can expect a badly shoe-horned in reference that is the protagonists only personality and makes no sense whatsoever to the situation AT ALL. LOTR, K-pop, HP, Star Trek, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Marvel, you name it, it was crammed in and I swear to God it was rage inducing. Lord Of The Rings was the worst offender for this and was mentioned so much I wanted to scream. This book compared anything and everything to this loosely and it was so cringey I can't explain to you. Alone on the bus like Gollum, a man glowing like Saurons Eye, her dad walking through a door like Aragorn in Rohan, and even the McDonalds bathroom is compared to Mordor! I wish I was kidding. These are just a tiny sampling of these awful attempts at metaphor. Even if you like these IP's it will drive you to hatred every time the book mentions it again and again. It was honestly laughable if it wasn't so bad to read.

The whole point of this book was to be a mystery. But no such luck there either. The book tells you pretty early what this is about and takes no time to work it out. It's not like I figured it out either, the book flat out tells you. Such a mystery. The climax is so underwhelming and nonsensical it didn't even feel like a climax at all. Nothing much really happens and the book ends with nothing changing, no character development and that's that. But by the end, I cared so little anyway I didn't even mind. The sister's mysterious disappearance was my only saving grace for a short while at the start and even that turned into nothing exiting, interesting or surprising. I ended up hating every character, even the ones I'm supposed to like.

The only good thing I could say about this book is the representation (and even that was somehow irritable.) Lesbian character, great! POC and black characters, yes. This is something I love to see in books and should have been happy about. SHOULD. The characters were so unlikable I couldn't really enjoy it, and it makes a point to shove in your face how woke it is. Did I mention she's a lesbian yeah? She's a lesbian, she likes girls. Yes black lesbian. Black. And lesbian. (Annoying yet?) It is so unnecessary to constantly be making it abundantly clear the obvious for brownie points. Honestly I didn't think this book could make me irritable over representation so that's almost impressive. This kind of representation speaks for itself and should. If only the characters were remotely likeable or human adjacent in anyway, it would have been great. Instead robotic, nonsense characters who frustrate you at every turn and with everything you're known to like.

Overall the writing, the plot and the characters were all nonsensical and frustrating. At least that was consistent. I wish this book had a redeeming light but it just wasn't there. It has to be read to be believed honestly, but I don't recommend that unless you enjoy torturing yourself. I wish I didn't have to be so negative but as I said, the truth is the truth, no matter how much it pains me. Maybe you'll love this for some reason, who knows! I wished I could have loved it or even thought it was ok but alas, it was a bad experience to say the least. I still think this was a first draft that got slipped into my kindle, That would make more sense than this mess.

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OMG! I could barely put this down.... A proper YA thriller from Patrice Lawrence. Silva has disappeared, and with her parents away, it is down to Becks to find out where her sister has got to. Unraveling piece by piece, with occasional chapters from Silva's POV - this book had me on tenterhooks. Although occasionally a little far-fetched, this didn't affect my enjoyment of the book. It was Beck's character, lively and confident jumping off the page which most got to me. I wanted to read more of her words. I would keep this as a definite recommend to fans of Good Girl's Guide to Murder and Truly Devious... It was brilliant.

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I have just finished 'Eight Pieces of Silva' by Patrice Lawrence and needed to share it with you. It is hot off the press and it is thanks to NetGalley I was able to get access to it and what a superb YA mystery it is! Becks is meant to be home alone with her sister Silva while their parents go on their honeymoon. But after she drops them at the airport, Silva doesn't come home. And she is ignoring Becks calls. Through a series of minute bits of contact and items Becks finds, she puts together where Silva might be.....Absolutely compulsive reading, with characters you care about and a cleverly revealed plot line makes this a superb read for older teens if you want to recommend something new and fresh to yours! Recommend 13+.

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Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for sending me a copy in exchange for a review.

Sadly, I did not get on with this book. At first I was enjoying it but then as the plot was slowly revealed I just couldn’t wrap my head around why anyone would lose their minds over a boy like that.

Not for me I’m afraid.

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Wow. Please read this book. I really really enjoyed it, I loved how layered this book ended up being. It explored so many different levels of being human from anxiety to death of a parent to just exploring different types of relationships in general. But also because it represented living as a teenager so well. I hadn’t actually read a Patrice Lawrence book before but after reading this I really want to go back and read all of them!

In Short

In Short: Anxiety + Exploration of Relationships + Sapphic + A Mystery that is so much more than a Mystery

In More Depth

Silva has gone missing. She was meant to meet her sister at home after saying goodbye to their parents at the airport for their honeymoon. She never turned up though. What happened to her, why didn’t she come home? Well, thats for you to find out when you read this absolute stunner of a book.

After the first few chapters I fell in love with Patrice Lawrence’s writing and oh my gosh. Just the way she writes is absolutely incredible. It was like she went back in time and peered into teenage Ben and captured exactly how I felt about life and just the overwhelming feeling of just being a teenager.

I won’t spoil too much of the plot here because it feels like a book you need to experience for yourself. But I will 100% assure you that although this book explores so many different themes and is such a layered but a must read, never strays far away from the core story of what’s happened to Silva. You’ll be at the edge of your seat not only wanting to find out more of what’s going on with Silva but also just wanting more of everything. It’s genuinely such a stunning read and a really hope you give it a read because honestly? You won’t regret it!

In Conclusion

All in all though. There are way too many reasons to list why you should read this book I will try to sum up in one short word. K-POP! The one thing that Becks & Silva bonded over when they first met was K-POP! (I know right!). But also there is so much talk at the moment about lifting up Black voices and Black authors, but I don’t know why I haven’t heard about this book on my timeline at all recently. If you really want to read kick-ass books by kick-ass Black authors then here’s a little hint. START HERE. THIS IS SO GOOD AND I DON’T KNOW HOW ELSE I CAN GET THIS ACROSS!! (Can you tell I loved this book?)

Don’t Go Just Yet!

I’m on a fabulous blog tour with some absolutely amazing people! Thank you so much to Hachette for sending me an ARC for me to review and join the Blog Tour for this brilliant book! But i’m not the only one on this tour, if you haven’t yet please check out the fabulous Joel from Fictional Fates who came before me and keep an eye out for FCGB for their tour stop soon!

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The stand out aspect of Eight Pieces of Silva was definetely the characters for me. Becks is an engaging main character with a refreshing and real voice that came alive on the page and was distinctly young but not too immature. Becks is immediately likeable and relatable with her fangirl-ish love for Black Panther and Kpop, her casual and curious voice. She is bold and brave and her character development was natural and well-done.

I loved how Becks being sapphic wasn’t a main point of the book. It was like, here is our main character, she’s a lesbian by the way, and there’s this whole mystery she has to solve, which was something I really appreciate. Sapphics deserve coming of age and discovering our sexuality stories but we also deserve all kinds of others stories where our sexuality isn’t the focal point, like straight people get!

Becks romance and dynamic with China was wonderful – they were already friends and it’s immediately clear how much they care for each other. What I loved most about this two was how undeniably and stoically they were there for each other and supported each other. They were loving, kind and truthful to each other throughout and I really shipped them.

Their romance also stood as an opposite of the toxic relationship discussed in this book, which I can’t give too many details about. I thought this relationship was discussed with care and compassion but still showing how it was unhealthy.

Silva was also a nuanced and interesting character, she was compassionate and fiercely loving, perhaps too much so. I loved the sisterly relationship of Becks and Silva, I wish it had been discussed even more in depth, but though these two haven’t always got on perfectly it becomes clear that they’ll be there for each other no matter what and over the course of the book come to understand the other and their needs better.

There were so many more themes in this book that I loved, including the complexities of family, grief and mental health and race.

My main grievance with this book and the reason I gave it four rather than five stars is the mystery aspect of the plot. While it was intriguing, I didn’t find it to be nearly as exciting or mysterious as I had hoped. This book was very much marketed as a mystery thriller but I didn’t really find it thrilling at all. The big reveal and build up were not nearly as high stakes as the beginning of the book might make you believe and some of the clues leading to Silva were barely relevant. There are also diary entries written by Silva that pretty much explain why she’s gone before Becks finds it out, very much deducting from the suspense and surprise we could have felt alongside Becks had these not been there. It still was a complicated and interesting mystery just not to the degree I’d hoped. I felt this book was very much a character focused mystery which is wonderful but didn’t quite work for me. However Eight Pieces of Silva is still amazing and totally worth a read, with so many great aspects to it.

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Eight Pieces of Silva is a unique take on a mystery and I was totally pulled in to the narrative and by the twists and turns which lead to me not wanting to put this book down! Eight Pieces of Silva follows Becks and her sister Silva who are left home alone while their parents are on their Honeymoon, or that’s the plan at least. Silva suddenly disappears and cannot be contacted leaving Becks to piece together where she could have possibly gone.

I really like how this book shows the complexity of family. First of all there is the positive representation of step-parents which was so nice to see. The relationship with step-siblings. The loss of a parent. The relationship with a biological dad who has not been around for sixteen years. It also represents a multicultural family.

Eight Pieces of Silva is filled with brilliant, realistic, complicated characters readers will love. Beck's voice comes alive on the page, feeling fresh and real in a way that sucks you straight into the novel. Lawrence shows the complexity of toxic relationships and first love through Silva's despair, and Silva's desperate passages show how a bad breakup can feel like grieving. But Lawrence also shows positive, loving relationships through Becks and China, who was supportive and caring towards Becks and was exactly who she needed by her side while trying to get to the bottom of Silva's disappearance.

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Sharp narrative voices, and a very engaging read. Becks is home alone, her mother and stepfather have gone to Japan on a highly anticipated honeymoon; her stepsister has vanished. Worried about Silva, Becks has a hunt in her room and finds some clues to what has been preoccupying her stepsister...

As much as the sibling relationship within the book, I was fascinated by the friendships. Who can Becks rely on for help, and how much does she know about the people she loves?

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I loved to hear both Becks and Silvas voices and experiences throughout the book. Both were very distinctive so it wasnt confusing.

All of the characters personalities and life stories were told in individual ways . Personally , I hated Logan, Quite liked DNA Dad as it showed how some people really can change. I was angry at Raych and Loved China!

This book tackles grief,LGBTQ+, family dynamics and friendships in a unique and fabulous way. Although many parts were sad, the ending was perfect!

It is definitely my favourite book of Patrices so far and I would recommend people go and read it.

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I wanted to like this book, I thought it sounded amazing! But I cannot understand Silva's decisions, she was selfish and got on my nerves. All her plot fell flat for me.

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Eight Pieces of Silva is a YA mystery novel that follows a queer, black British teenager looking for her missing stepsister. When Becks’ mother and Silva’s father fly to Japan for their honeymoon, Silva doesn’t return home after accompanying them to the airport. Becks decides to search for clues in Silva’s bedroom to work out where she could be.

This novel is excellently crafted and executed. The story is told from Becks and Silva’s perspectives in alternating chapters. Silva’s chapters are like personal, apologetic letters to Becks in which she shares her innermost thoughts and why she never came home. The plot didn’t feel predictable at any point, and my main theory as to why Silva went missing was proved entirely wrong.

Becks is such a funny and charming character and I immediately loved her voice. It’s easy to empathise and identify with the protagonists in this story. For the most part, Becks is trying to sort out a huge mess and find her sister on her own and understandably becomes overwhelmed and frustrated by this. It’s easy to think Silva is out of order for doing a disappearing act on Becks, but as the novel progresses, it becomes clear how losing her mother has deeply impacted Silva. She reveals to Becks how strange and difficult it’s been having to adapt to her new family dynamic. The author thoughtfully portrays the complexities of dealing with loss and grief, especially as a young person. Eight Pieces of Silva also explores the intricacies of stepfamilies, and what it means to be a family.

Finding Silva is Becks’ main priority but there are also other things on her mind. She spends a lot of time thinking about her crush and reluctantly attempts to build a relationship with her biological father who has not been around since Becks was a baby. I enjoyed the pop culture references and numerous mentions of K-Pop and K-Drama–it makes the story feel current. Eight Pieces Of Silva touches on several other themes including race, class, friendship, falling in love and mental health, all of which are woven together so effortlessly that it just works.
If you’re after a smart, funny, current YA novel with many layers to peel back, and a loveable black, gay female protagonist, then you’ll love Eight Pieces of Silva.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Children's Group for sending me an early review copy.
Link to the full review on my blog: https://tenelleottleymatthew.com/book-review-eight-pieces-of-silva

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Although Patrice is clearly a good writer, and the idea of this story is interesting, I just didn't connect to it at any point. I skimmed a lot of the middle.

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Forgot to say I finished #UKYA Eight Peices of Silva at the weekend & I think Becks is one of the best characters I've read in a long time. It might even be my favourite @LawrencePatrice book! Thanks @HachetteKids @HCGFictionTeam for the #Netgalley...out THIS WEEK!

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This was such a good mystery. I love YA mysteries, and I'm glad I found another writer I got along very well.
The writing was very suspenseful, the plot was really good. It all came together very nice and neat.
I'd highly recommend it if you like this genre.

Thanks so much to the publisher and NG for this copy.

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Brilliant read!
One of those with many layers to peel and mysteries to solve.

Full review to follow.

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