SPARE AND FOUND PARTS by Sarah Maria Griffin

Review by Jackie

SPARE AND FOUND PARTS
by Sarah Maria Griffin
Print Length: 416 pages
Publisher: Greenwillow Books (October 4, 2016)
Publication Date: October 4, 2016
Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
Goodreads | Amazon

Nell Crane has never held a boy’s hand.

In a city devastated by an epidemic, where survivors are all missing parts—an arm, a leg, an eye—Nell has always been an outsider. Her father is the famed scientist who created the biomechanical limbs that everyone now uses. But she’s the only one with her machinery on the inside: her heart. Since the childhood operation, she has ticked. Like a clock, like a bomb. And as her community rebuilds, everyone is expected to contribute to the society’s good . . . but how can Nell live up to her father’s revolutionary ideas when she has none of her own?

Then she finds a lost mannequin’s hand while salvaging on the beach, and inspiration strikes. Can Nell build her own companion in a world that fears advanced technology? The deeper she sinks into this plan, the more she learns about her city—and her father, who is hiding secret experiments of his own.

As I sit here looking out my college dorm window, typing up this review for a book I read a week and a half ago, I find myself feeling pretty much the same as I did when I finished it. Wistful, super unsatisfied, and just sort of blah about the book in general. The main difference now is that my dorm room is freaking freezing and I’m wearing sweats, fluffy socks, a sweatshirt, and drinking hot tea.

In Texas.

In the summer months.

What is this, y’all? A freezing dorm. That’s what. *le sigh*

The summation of the book goes like this: girl with a mechanical heart, apparently genius father, and dead mother is searching for someone who understands the ticking inside her chest. Her best friend doesn’t get her, and she feels like her father’s legacy is too much to live up to. Also there’s this boy who is convinced that she is his soul mate but she is just so Not Interested. She decides to invent an android.

I liked her don’t need no man attitude. I almost always find that perspective of independence and faith in oneself appealing. She wasn’t out searching for someone to love her in a romantic way, but it was a curiosity. She was, however, pretty much searching for a friend at the beginning of the world. This, to me, was a little odd. It was also understandable. SPARE AND FOUND PARTS progressed so, so, so slowly, however, that it seemed like what I thought would be the driving part (mechanical man) was very off-in-the-distance.

This book was slow moving. In the worst possible way. In the way that made the book feel like it just wasn’t freaking progressing. That’s not really a good thing. I can like certain character attitudes, and even relate to them, but if nothing actually occurs in the book (I don’t know: punching, traveling, inventions occurring sooner, grand reveals) then I just can’t get into the book. Reading the book felt like sleepwalking.

And sleepwalking book emotions don’t get many stars here, folks.

Overall, this book just was about opposite of my cup of tea, except for the independence streak the MC has!