Pieces of Me

De: Kate McLaughlin

Narrado por: Amanda Dolan

The next gut-punching, thoroughly enjoyable Kate McLaughlin novel, about a girl finding strength in not being alone.

When eighteen-year-old Dylan wakes up, she’s in an apartment she doesn’t recognize. The other people there seem to know her, but she doesn't know them—not even the pretty, chiseled boy who tells her his name is Connor. A voice inside her head keeps saying that everything is okay, but Dylan can’t help but freak out. Especially when she borrows Connor’s phone to call home and realizes she’s been missing for three days.

Dylan has lost time before, but never like this.

Soon after, Dylan is diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and must grapple not only with the many people currently crammed inside her head, but that a secret from her past so terrible she’s blocked it out has put them there. Her only distraction is a budding new relationship with Connor. But as she gets closer to finding out the truth, Dylan wonders: will it heal her or fracture her further?

Kate McLaughlin’s Pieces of Me is raw, intimate, and surprisingly hopeful.

“Pieces of Me is a chilling, yet empathetic, look into Dissociative Identity Disorder. With her calm, pure, voice, Kate McLaughlin delves deep into the crevices of this misunderstood disorder and a young woman's mind. I had to keep reading not only to understand Dylan, the main character—but to understand all of the people inside Dylan’s head." - Hayley Krischer, author of Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf and The Falling Girls

©2023 Kate McLaughlin (P)2023 Recorded Books

Poorly researched

I’m a big Kate McLaughlin fan, but and enjoyed her previous books more than PIECES OF ME, which I felt tried too hard. McLaughlin did extensive research with people who say they’ve been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and a psychologist, but not clinicians and researchers who know the disorder isn’t like SYBIL was depicted in the TV movies. Dylan’s friend is the first to diagnose her, using Dr Google and while googling diagnoses is common, it often results in false positives because psychiatric conditions are more difficult to ascertain than a Cosmo Quiz. The DSM was never meant to be read by armchair psychologists.

PIECES OF ME means well and I appreciate McLaughlin’s attempts to destigmatize mental illness by giving Dylan a perfect new boyfriend who has virtually no qualms about her serious problems and perfectly supportive divorced parents.

I think readers who enjoy mental health themed books will enjoy PIECES OF ME, I hope that they see this as fiction not a literal depiction of the disorder. Being a child psychologist I worry about accuracy though I’m don’t think most readers are as picky of me on this issue.

Writing wise, McLaughlin’s beautiful wordbuilding gets bogged down with extraneous dialogue that didn’t move plot or characters forward.

My lack of enthusiasm for PIECES OF ME doesn’t make me less of a McLaughlin fan.

Relatable

I’m a diagnosed DID system. I enjoyed this book a lot. I found out I was a system in a similar way to Dylan (of course not exactly the same). I’ve been seen by mental health professionals off and on since I was five and have received many wrong diagnoses because of how covert my system was and how rare a lot of mental health professionals think it is (it’s not). After I was diagnosed I had a couple professionals tell me they didn’t think DID is real at all or that it doesn’t belong in the DSM. I’ve personally found therapists to be more useful than doctors when it comes to my DID. Dylan suffered mentally for years. And like a lot of people who have been ignored by medical professionals in general she was ultimately suggested to talk to her therapist about the possibility of DID by her best friend. Someone who seen her often and could see the changes in her. She wasn’t diagnosed by her friend she was diagnosed by a doctor after she ended up in a mental health hospital. I appreciate that Dylan didn’t become some kind of evil trope. This book puts the right energy out for people to understand DID a little better, how it shouldn’t be feared. That the real bad guy is the person or people responsible for traumatizing a child so badly that their brain splits. I also appreciate how specifically put that DID is a trauma disorder. I’m also grateful that they didn’t go into too much detail of Dylan’s trauma, it makes it where people with trauma similar to hers can still read the book. I enjoyed how wonderful the support system for Dylan was. The characters reactions varied to her diagnosis which honestly felt really accurate. And that she even found love. Every system is different. Our mannerisms, what switches look like. If you’ve met one person with DID they don’t represent every person with DID. I think mental health professionals need to be reminded of this as well.