Love is like a jagged piece of glass; smooth on some sides and sharp on others. In her novel, "All the Broken Pieces," Ann E. Burg explores the multi-faceted emotion of love using imagery and characterization, and through the intricacies of a blended family shows that love is a many-faced emotion that is extremely complex, yet simply understood by some. Burg’s use of imagery allows the reader to explore the many aspects of love, and contemplate the complexities of the emotion. “Maybe love is like a monsoon rain. When it rains really hard and heavy, it seems like it will never end and we'll swim in mud forever. Every gurgle and ooze tiptoes away and we're left wishing and waiting for rain again” (Burg 67-68). Matt, the protagonist, struggles with the true meaning of love.  Matt takes the love he gets from his mother for granted, and when he loses that he realizes how much that was a part of him and how much he craves it. Love is like a rollercoaster, never going at a constant speed and taking one in all different directions. One cannot choose the road love weaves, but one can choose who shall accompany them on this journey. Matt has adapted to the monsoon rain by living under the shelter of his mother’s wing, and now living without it he craves it once more. Furthermore, Burg uses imagery to explore the complexities of love. “My mother, I write. I draw a box around the word My and another around the word mother No one would even know there’s something inside” (60). Matt realizes that love never is smooth; there will always be a small defect, a minor bump, in the road. Feeling abandoned he starts to loath his mother, he contemplates about how his father said that he loved his mother, and still left. Love is never the same for every person; he finds it is unique to each person. Even though Love can be very complex, once you find the right formula it becomes simple. Burg’s use of characterization shows the reader th