Spare and Found Parts by Sarah Maria Griffin

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.

Spare and Found Parts is the sort of book that grabs hold of you, and by the end you don’t want it to let go. After reading a sampler for this book late last year, I needed more so I couldn’t wait to read the entire book. Now having read the book, I have to say that it was worth the wait, and I don’t think the story will leave me for a while because I loved every minute reading it.

The story is about Nell who is a lonely girl with a clockwork heart, who lives in a dystopian Ireland with her dad. After discovering a mannequins hand she decides to stop being lonely and build herself a boy. There is so much more to this story, but I don’t want to give much more away because I think that this book is best to go into not knowing much more.

Nell is the sort of character that you connect with from the very start, you feel for her, especially her loneliness and her wanting to have someone. So even when she comes up with this idea to build herself a companion, you understand why and you want her to build someone, even though she is pushing away her actual friends. I haven’t felt this much for a character in a while, and I loved it.

I thought the setting was both stunning and and very different. When I heard the story would be set in a dystopian world, I wasn’t that excited about it because I have read so many stories set in the same world. However this world felt new and very original, which made this story even more of a pleasure to read about. The way it was described was so beautifully written that it was so easy to visualise the world and see it from the authors mind.

I think the story is the main reason I loved this book because it was so engaging and gripping that I didn’t want to put it down. I have heard this being described as an dystopian take on the Frankenstein story, and I think that this is the best way to describe the book. I have never read the original Frankenstein story so I can’t compare them both, but all I know is that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

It did take me a little while to get used to the writing style at the beginning of the book, but after a few chapters it all clicked into place and I couldn’t put the book down. This is the first book I have read by Sarah Maria Griffin, and I found the writing to be full of imagination and wonderfully captivating.

I would definitely recommend this book to readers who wants a story that will keep them entertained from beginning to end. This story is full of heart, adventure and so gripping, its hard not to love this book.

I rate this book 4/5 stars

***I was sent a copy of this book for review. Everything in this review is my own honest opinions.***