Review: The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno

Title: The Half Life of Molly Pierce
Author: Katrina Leno
Rating: ★★★★ (4/5 Stars)
Hardcover, 256 Pages
Published July 2014
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Summary: You take it for granted. Waking up. Going to school, talking to your friends. Watching a show on television or reading a book or going out to lunch. You take for granted going to sleep at night, getting up the next day, and remembering everything that happened to you before you closed your eyes. You live and you remember. Me, I live and I forget. But now—now I am remembering. For all of her seventeen years, Molly feels like she’s missed bits and pieces of her life. Now, she’s figuring out why. Now, she’s remembering her own secrets. And in doing so, Molly uncovers the separate life she seems to have led…and the love that she can’t let go.

Content-wise, I was all set to give this book three stars, but the fact that one chapter into this book I was already boggled and my pulse was racing with what the heck just happened??!?!?!?, I knew Leno had a talent for not beating around the bush and getting right into the action of the story. 

As the summary explains, Molly is a teen girl with a split personality disorder, even if that's not what it's outright called in the book. She creates a second half of her in her head as a child--a happier, bolder, braver, luckier Molly. And she names her Mabel. For years, Molly and Mabel were able to coexist, totally unnoticed.

But as time went on, Mabel would spend more and more time in Molly's body, leaving Molly to return into situations where hours would pass and she would have no idea what was going on. And it became serious. One minute, Molly would be sitting in class taking notes, and then she'd blink--and it'd be six hours later and she'd be sitting on her couch doing her homework. What happened in between those six hours, she had no recollection of--but Mabel did.

The Half Life of Molly Pierce was gripping and strange, and I definitely had to follow along at all times, otherwise I would be hopelessly lost. Katrina Leno managed to spin an intricate story that baffled me like a story hasn't baffled me in a long, long time. 

I even texted my co-blogger, Amber, right after the first chapter, completely shocked that in less than 20 pages a majority of WOW moments already happened. Pretty much, Leno wasted no time getting down to the important pieces of the story--no rising action for her. Quite literally, no time was wasted. At all. In one chapter, an extremely important and crucial event already happened in the story. Not even just a one chapter, but the first chapter. LESS THAN 20 PAGES IN AND I WAS MIND BLOWN.

Page after page, the story unraveled and more and more clues were revealed about the lives of Molly and Mabel and the memories that Molly would lose while Mable was present in her body, etc. I found it very interesting throughout the story that Mabel was referred to as a separate person, when in reality, she was just a figment of Molly's imagination the whole time, since that's what happens when people have split personality disorders--their minds fabricate a whole new person.

From a psychological perspective, the story was even more interesting. Watching Molly search for answers and then slowly receive and make sense of them was an interesting development, and the story gave me plenty of insight of what it's actually like to suffer from a split personality disorder like Molly did. Very, very chilling and interesting. 

All in all, The Half Life of Molly Pierce was a gripping, fast-paced psychological novel that blew my mind over and over again with plot twists and shocking information at every turn, and I was thoroughly engrossed in the story the whole time. Katrina Leno did a great job and I definitely can't wait to read more of her work. :-)