Weekly Reader: I Love You To Pieces by Lori Flynn; Mystery and Mental Health Drama Does Not Mix Well

Weekly Reader: I Love You to Pieces by Lori Flynn; Mystery and Mental Health Drama Does Not Mix Well

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: It's ironic that Lori Flynn's novel, I Love You to Pieces is about a protagonist with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Because the lead character isn't the only one who is confused about her identity. The tone of the book is uncertain whether it wants to be a murder mystery with an obvious twist or a dramatic story about a young woman's illness being used as a coping mechanism from an abused childhood. The two shifting tones show that the DID diagnosis is so paramount and obvious that it should have served as the main plot point instead of spending so much time trying to hide the secret from the Reader when they know what the secret is.


Olivia Harding is the wealthy Floridian daughter of a loving father and an abusive mother. Her father Alexander adores her but he dies in a plane crash when she is nine. Her mother, Elizabeth, is a cruel horrible woman. She kills Olivia's lovebirds and cat out of malicious spite then breaks her arm in a fit of rage. After her father's death, Olivia moves in with Catherine, her loving grandmother, and gets some semblance of peace. However, she suffers from PTSD and has blackouts of events that she can't remember.

There is a haunting moment when Olivia is trapped by Elizabeth inside a storage room. Catherine receives a phone call from a small but threatening voice saying that "Elizabitch" has locked Olivia up and could she get her out. This passage foreshadows how Olivia's illness served as a protector against her mother, but then became a hindrance for her living a full life.


Olivia grows into a loving young woman who decides to create fundraisers for her family's non-profit shelter for rescue dogs. Catherine is still a loving feisty presence in her life. She has two female friends, Jill and Melody, who also have personal and psychological problems. She befriends and becomes romantically involved with Ben, her family's young attorney. She seems to be adjusting to life.

Unfortunately, she still has her psychological disorders that she doesn't want anyone to know about. She still has blackouts and can't remember certain things like going through a procedure to get an IUD inserted inside her. Nor can she explain the expensive clothes or the marks on her body that suggests sexual acts in which Olivia does not remember taking part.

Then there are the chapters which are told from the point of view of Delia, a wild foul mouthed escort to wealthy visitors to Florida. She does her bit but constantly wants to "be free" and needs to get to her place by a certain time. It becomes evident that Delia and Olivia are the same person and that Olivia has DID with Delia serving as an alternate personality.


If the book had introduced us to Olivia's DID from the beginning, it would function well as a general fiction book about a woman struggling with an illness that she barely understands partly because of her blackouts and the confusion of the people around her. She could have seen a psychiatrist through Catherine and been diagnosed early on. We could have had many chapters of her trying to reconcile her personalities with herself and her life. The book could have chronicled her recovery and reconciling herself with her other personalities as well as confronting Elizabeth with what she caused.


But no what could be a realistic story of living with Dissociative Identity Disorder becomes a hoary murder mystery/psychological thriller, as theatrical as Shutter Island by using DID as a plot twist instead of an illness. There is the usual subplot of Delia committing violence and Olivia being accused of it. The confusion among friends and other characters when she is suddenly not herself when it is clear to the Reader why she is not herself. The mystery is not even that convincing since we know who did it.

Because the revelation of her illness occurs halfway through the book, Olivia's recovery is glossed over into the final couple of chapters. We are given a late third personality to learn about before that happens. We are given very little insight of what it is like to live with such an illness when it is used as merely a plot point instead of an actual illness that many people struggle with in real life.


I Love You to Pieces could be a better book, but unfortunately the pieces don't fit together to make a complete whole.