59 pages • 1 hour read
Tillie ColeA Thousand Broken Pieces
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Necessity of Emotional Vulnerability
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, death, and death by suicide.
Cole frequently uses the image of a wall when describing both Savannah and Cael. Ida tells Savannah, “You built walls around your heart so high that no one could break them” (27), while Cael notes that even his parents’ sadness could not “break through the impenetrable walls that now encase[] [his] heart” (36). For the characters, these walls have two effects; they protect their hearts from further damage but keep everyone else out in the process. The novel therefore suggests that these walls do more to harm the characters than to protect them and that a large part of the process of navigating grief is learning to lower these walls and let out the emotions trapped inside.
For Savannah, that vulnerability is rooted in expression—specifically, expression of her love for Poppy and her grief after Poppy’s death. Though Savannah is introverted by nature, Cole suggests that even people with her temperament benefit from sharing their emotions with others. A key moment for Savannah is when she confesses to Cael, “Sometimes I think it’s me who should have died” (178). Savannah’s guilt is a part of her grief, and only in expressing it to Cael does she begin to overcome these feelings. Cael assures her of her importance in his life, which allows Savannah to see her value not only to him but also to her family and friends; he also assures her that Poppy would have wanted her to love and laugh even after her death. By airing her deepest sorrows and anxieties, Savannah thus learns to recontextualize them as a reflection not of reality but of her grief.
Cael, too, needs to open up about his feelings—particularly his anger and sadness—but sharing with Savannah is not enough. Leo notes that while Savannah and Cael’s relationship can serve as motivation for Cael to seek healing, Cael needs to allow professionals to help him through his feelings rather than burying his grief under his love for Savannah. In Japan, Cael makes this decision, deciding to break his agreement with Savannah and trust Leo: “Leo had walked the same path I had. This was his life’s work. I had to put my trust in him if I wanted to get better” (235). Ultimately, more than showing vulnerability through dialogue, Cael’s challenge is to show vulnerability by giving up control. By accepting Leo as a mentor and guide, Cael is accepting that he cannot move forward alone and that he needs to let Leo inside his walls to begin healing. Taken together, the two protagonists’ storylines represent different avenues toward and struggles with vulnerability, underscoring that while the process of opening up may manifest in different ways, it is always central to healing.
The Power of Human Connection in Recovery
Since vulnerability is necessarily interpersonal, the novel’s emphasis on its importance is closely intertwined with its emphasis on human connection. As a romance, A Thousand Broken Pieces is particularly interested in romantic love’s power to help characters work through their grief, but it also showcases the role that other kinds of relationships play, from the connection between Leo and Cael, to the connections between the group of teens, to even fleeting encounters between strangers (for example, the interaction between Dylan and Rune).
The novel’s central relationship is that between Savannah and Cael. Their love plays a large part in their recovery, and it is their connection that dominates the narrative. In the Epilogue, Savannah specifically credits Cael with supporting her through her ongoing battle against grief, especially in the wake of losing Rune as well, noting, “It was hard, and often emotional, but I came home to the safety of Cael” (334). Eight years after the trip, Cael and Savannah’s connection is still a strong and secure bond that keeps them both from floating off into despair.
At the same time, the non-romantic connections established within the group are also important to the teens’ healing process. Indeed, the group members regularly note how much better they feel while facing their grief as part of a unit. When Cael asks Aika if any plates, or people, are beyond repair, he notes that “she understood why [he] had really asked that question. Everyone around this table did” (270). Here, Cael draws comfort from knowing that the group shares many of the same experiences. Later, at the Wind Phone, Savannah feels Dylan’s hand in hers, noting, “I saw we were all connected. Lili, to Jade, to Travis, to Dylan, to me, to Cael. We had gotten here” (292). Holding hands at the final moment of finding acceptance shows how each of the teens has benefited from close contact and connection with each other as they pushed through their grief.
Human connection is so important, the novel suggests, that it transcends death. As the trip’s guides and therapists, Leo and Mia emphasize the importance of talking to everyone—even those the group has lost. Mia immediately establishes that “one thing [they] require as a must is for you to start keeping a journal” (43), which she suggests the teens use “to express whatever [they] didn’t get to say to the one or ones [they] have lost” (44). The mere suggestion of talking to Cillian throws Cael into a rage, but the implication is that people can still draw strength from the connections they feel they have lost.
Learning to Love After Loss
In the Prologue, Savannah holds Poppy’s hand as she dies, and Savannah thinks, “I wouldn’t let go. I wasn’t sure I ever could” (6). Savannah holding on to the moment of Poppy’s death is the source of much of her grief and anxiety, as she struggles to move past this moment of trauma. However, her words also indicate her reluctance to find new people and things to love after losing her sister. Cael is even more resistant to this, as his grief causes him to deny even his love for his lost loved ones. The process of healing from loss thus involves finding new friends, rediscovering old hobbies, falling in love, and learning to love oneself.
Finding external things and people to love is the easier challenge, the novel suggests. Through connections with people like Cael and Dylan, Savannah learns to forge new connections; Cael, meanwhile, establishes a romantic relationship with Savannah and a mentor-like one with Leo. As the trip progresses, they also begin to rediscover joy in living, from Poppy witnessing the northern lights to Cael beginning to play hockey again.
To fully embrace love after loss, however, both characters need to find themselves again. For Savannah, this means renewing her decision to go to Harvard and become a doctor. As she tours the pediatric oncology ward of the hospital, she fights through her memories of Poppy. Afterward, Savannah tells Mia and Susan, “I want to help so that cancer—all cancer—is curable. I want it. So much” (252). The key element in her statement is her emphatic “I want it”: She is choosing this path for herself because it is what she wants to do, regardless of external motivations. In effect, this decision is Savannah choosing herself and her desires over her grief; she is loving who she is and what she wants to do.
Cael’s path is less straightforward, and it involves his biggest setback in the novel. When Simon challenges Cael to see depression ending in suicide as similar to any other terminal illness, Cael realizes, “It hadn’t been [Cillian’s] fault […] he wasn’t to blame. But I’d blamed him. I was the bad brother” (240). Initially, Cael’s journey seemed to involve reclaiming his love for Cillian, and this is an important step. However, upon realizing that Cillian was not to blame, Cael turns his anger and grief inward, blaming himself for the resentment he felt toward Cillian. From this point on, Cael’s journey becomes one of trying to love and forgive himself. With his parents, friends, and even Savannah, Cael apologizes often, even as everyone tells him that he does not need to feel sorry; these apologies reflect his own self-loathing. Only after his residential program can Cael comfortably play hockey in Cillian’s jersey, which both honors Cillian’s memory and shows that Cael feels that he has earned the right to play alongside his brother’s teammates.
Notably, this is also when Cael and Savannah reestablish their romantic relationship. Thus, as much as the novel is about learning to love others after loss, it suggests that self-love is a prerequisite for healthy, sustainable relationships.
