Review: A Tiny Piece of Something Greater by Jude Sierra

Title: A Tiny Piece of Something Greater

Author: Jude Sierra

Length: 264 Pages

Category: Contemporary, New Adult

At a Glance: Interlude Press continues to put out high quality, outstanding books, and Jude Sierra continues to wow me with her words. This book is going to stay with me for a long time. Don’t miss this one, guys!

Reviewed By: Jules

Blurb: Reid Watsford has a lot of secrets and a past he can’t quite escape. While staying at his grandmother’s condo in Key Largo, he signs up for introductory dive classes, where he meets Joaquim Oliveira, a Brazilian dive instructor with wanderlust. Driven by an instant, magnetic pull, what could have been just a hookup quickly deepens. As their relationship evolves, they must learn to navigate the challenges of Reid’s mental illness—on their own and with each other.

Review: Jude Sierra is an amazing wordsmith, and her latest novel, A Tiny Piece of Something Greater, is another fantastic example of her talent. It always takes me a moment to get past her third person present narrative choice, but once I’m in the groove, I find it so easy to get lost in her words. Her style is soothing somehow—I know, that sounds weird, but it’s true!—and her prose is so richly descriptive; I got so sucked into the story and Reid’s journey that I honestly didn’t want to put this book down.

As with Idlewild (one of my favorite books of 2016), A Tiny Piece of Something Greater is largely character driven, and, as such, is heavily focused on the two MCs, though a bit heavier on Reid. It is his journey that we’re on, after all, so a lot of time is spent getting to know him, and what it’s like living with mental illness. Reid has cyclothymia, a mood disorder that causes him to have sometimes very rapid mood swings. Emotional highs and lows that can sometimes cycle so fast that it’s impossible to function properly. He describes it at one point as “a milder form of bipolar.” There are a lot of details in the book about Reid’s condition and what it’s like on a day-to-day basis, but those details allow us to really be in Reid’s headspace, and to get a true picture of what it means to be cyclothymic.

When the story opens, Reid, desperately in need of a fresh start, is on his way to the Florida Keys to stay at his grandma’s condo in Key Largo. Reid needs a break—from his parents, his hometown, and his ex—and spending some time away from everything, to focus on his recovery, seems like the perfect next step. He enrolls in a scuba diving class to stave off boredom, and, as luck would have it, the instructor ends up being charming, laid-back, and irresistible. Joaquim, the irresistible scuba instructor with a weakness for cute boys, never stood a chance when he met Reid, whose description in the book had me swooning a little bit, too!

These guys made me smile SO much, which was awesome and somewhat unexpected, because this book was…hard, at times. It was difficult to read about how much pain Reid was in, and the weight of what that meant for him and Joaquim. Reid has things he doesn’t want to disclose to Joaquim, because he doesn’t want to color the way Joaquim sees him. He wants to hang on to this thing they’ve started, without his mental illness taking center stage, which it inevitably will. But, thankfully Joaquim’s calm nature is like a balm for Reid’s jittery edges, making it a bit easier when Reid does open up to him about everything. And, I love how open, and just real Joaquim is about the things Reid shares with him. If he doesn’t understand, he says that. If he has questions, he tells Reid. But, he always let Reid share at his own pace. I’ve never been in Reid’s shoes but I have been in Joaquim’s, and Sierra did a great job of showing that helplessness that someone who’s trying to be in a support position can feel.

A Tiny Piece of Something Greater isn’t just about Reid’s mental illness, however. At it’s core, it’s a love story. I love how the author put it in her author’s note at the end of the book:

“This story isn’t just about [Reid’s] wellness journey; it is about a boy on an adventure, a boy coming into his own and falling in love.”

That love story was my favorite thing about the book. The romance between these two is so pure. That sounds cliché or something…but, it really is just so honest and pure. They were insanely sexy together, and Sierra is so perfect at showing their intimacy and how connected they were. I swooned so hard over these two.

I’m gonna leave it there… Gorgeous cover (I couldn’t go without mentioning how stunning that cover is), gorgeous story. Interlude Press continues to put out high quality, outstanding books, and Jude Sierra continues to wow me with her words. This book is going to stay with me for a long time. Don’t miss this one, guys!

You can buy A Tiny Piece of Something Greater here:
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