Character: The main character in Pieces of Me is Maddie. Maddie is a teenager who ran away from home because she didn't get along very well with her mother's boyfriend. Maddie is a confident and independent girl. She walked around alone and didn't interact much with others. After a few months of living alone, she met a boy named Q. She and Q got along very well, but she wasn't very open to him at first. The further the book went on, the closer they became. Maddie didn't have much faith in Q that he would work things out, but she stayed with him anyway. She was very caring and motherly to Leo and Dylan. She said to the children, “…to me it is as if I were your mother…” (page 222). He treated them as if they were his children. After Q and Leo leave, the book says "I put Dylan on my lap and held him..." (page 208); she was trying to protect Dylan and I think that's why the author included this. Ideas: This book is about a teenager named Maddie who lives on the streets. He meets a homeless man named Q and they start a family with two kids they meet. In the first chapter Maddie is profiled and Q tells her where some good places are to find free food. They start talking and she moves in with him in his car. The next chapters are about them and how they get along. One day Maddie met a woman and her children. Maddie babysat her oldest son, Dylan, and his mother never picked him up. Maddie immediately understood what was happening. In the book it says "They wouldn't come back for him..." (page 81) They decided to take him in. Later in the book Q is playing poker to get some extra money and ends up winning a boy who is being auctioned off. The boy, Leo, goes to live with them. All the time... middle of paper... and never came back. The author shows us this by writing in the book "Q was gone" (page 211). I think the author added this event to add suspense to the book. This was the perfect place in the book for that to happen. Things were already falling apart with them in ruins and Q's departure made things worse. Maddie ended up finding Leo and bringing him home. This was important because it added feeling to the story. The next day Maddie took the children to an abandoned apartment because they didn't have enough money to pay the rent. Later that night, Leo explained why he was auctioned off at the beginning of the story and realized that his parents wanted him. He returned to his family and Dylan and Maddie went into foster care. Even though it was sad, I think this event was necessary. I think the author wrote this as an ending to show that perfect endings aren't always possible.