Claudia Gray’s Firebird trilogy is a YA sci-fi romance that will take you all over the world, jumping into multiverses and dropping you in places of rich detail, vivid world building, and budding romance. It is an immersive, fun, and creative series that I happily reread in 2024 and maybe I can convince you to pick it up for yourself.

Marguerite Caine’s physicist parents are known for their groundbreaking achievements. Their most astonishing invention, called the Firebird, allows users to jump into multiple universes—and promises to revolutionise science forever. But then Marguerite’s father is murdered, and the killer — her parent’s handsome, enigmatic assistant Paul — escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him. Marguerite refuses to let the man who destroyed her family go free. So she races after Paul through different universes, always leaping into another version of herself. Along the journey, Marguerie finds out more information that dramatically changes the stakes, and as her family and loved ones are risking life and limb in their battle against an enemy from another multiverse, it is Marguerite who must soldier on and make the decisions for not only their world but all worlds’ sake.

A Thousand Pieces of You starts off slow, gently dipping the reader’s toes into this expansive and admittedly complex multiverse jargon. Luckily it makes sense to do so as Marguerite is a newcomer to all this scienceand tech. She is an artist who sees these worlds slightly differently from her parents and their grad school assistants Theo and Paul. The plot is fuelled by emotion initially, and to an extent it is always directed by emotion, but the more Marguerite learns from the worlds she visits the more her perception changes, and as a result the force behind her actions. I enjoyed A Thousand Pieces of You mainly because of the Russiaverse – the detail and colour of that world truly mesmerised me. As the starting novel in a series it does alright, but I would rate it the lowest out of the series at a 4/5.

Ten Thousand Skies Above You ramps up the tension and puts a few spanners in the works in terms of what the Caine’s knew – or thought they knew – about travelling the multiverses. It also puts strain on Paul and Marguerite’s budding relationship, raising the stakes in more ways than one, and introducing things into the exquation like the ethics of travelling, the health concerns, the preparedness of travellers, and the purpose and possibilities of multiverse travel. I find Ten Thousand Skies Above You to be more thought-provoking and analytical than the other books in the series, making it stand out for me, and I rate it a 4.5/5.

A Million Worlds With You is a wild ride, throwing everything up in the air as the action and stakes keep you gripping the book tight, flicking through the chapters with your heart in the throat, and eagerly awaiting the moments where the ball drops and something gives. It is a book where the results are always positive, the consequences are shown, and the family must face it head-on. I really like this one and the build up to the conclusion is great, but I do feel the ending is a little bit rushed or perhaps anticlimactic in the grand scheme of things. It feels shortlived, but it is still a great read. I give A Million Worlds With You a 4.5/5

Overall, this is a great YA series to get into, especially if you are new to sci-fi or like having multiple genre elements in your stories. There is a bit of everything here – historical settings, science fiction elements, romantic moments, adventure with all the multiverses, and a great action plot to keep you engaged. It is well worth a read and I highly encourage you to give it a go.