It isn’t until Jessica Chai dies that she truly learns what it means to live. Jessica spent the majority of her short life invisible to her parents and peers. It isn’t until the final days of her life that anything remotely notable happens to Jessica, when her long, beautiful hair is hacked off by a posse of mean girls in the short span between classes. Jessica’s hair, a shield to hide behind and an integral part of her identity is suddenly gone, leaving her with unexpected, but not completely unwelcome clean slate. But, before Jessica can unveil her reinvention to her peers she’s in a fatal car accident. She doesn’t see a tunnel of light calling away from her old life, she doesn’t simply blink out of existence, she simply stays, as invisible as before. When her parents decide to donate her organs, giving four teens a second chance, Jessica is angry; she knows her mother is manipulating Jessica’s legacy for their own gain. She lingers somewhere between life and death, following the daily lives of the four recipients. Time soothes Jessica’s bitterness about her life and untimely death; what she first considers a betrayal by her parents, becomes the very act that gives Jessica life and allows Jessica, finally, to be seen. Amber Kizer’s PIECES OF ME is a raw, inspiring story of life after death and the enduring legacy of a girl whose untimely death grants the gift of life.

PIECES OF ME is a departure from what I’ve come to expect from Amber Kizer, but it carried the intensity and directness that I’ve come to associate with her writing. Kizer doesn’t do fluffy, she does real. I was so affected by the topic of organ donation that, immediately after I finished PIECES OF ME, I went online and registered to be an organ donor.

The four recipients Jessica follows are so much more than their illness or medical issue. They face complicated home lives, financial hardships, and bullying. But, at the same time, they experience first love, connection, spirituality, freedom, happiness, and best of all, the chance at a future.

The only aspects of the novel that I felt off to me were the romantic elements. Maybe it was that I wasn’t expecting any romance or simply that I was focused on other plot lines, but I found the romance distracting.