Sliding Doors - YA style
Between the Lives by Brigid Kemmerer
Publication date: August 7th 2014 (first published May 1st 2013)
Publisher: Hachette Children’s Books
Number of pages 328
Series: N/A
Genre: YA Paranormal
Source: Received in exchange for review. This is my honest opinion.
Goodreads synopsis:
The perfect life or the perfect love. You choose.
For as long as she can remember, Sabine has lived two lives. Every 24 hours she shifts to her ‘other’ life – a life where she is exactly the same, but absolutely everything else is different: different family, different friends, different social expectations. In one life she has a sister, in the other she does not. In one life she’s a straight-A student with the perfect boyfriend, in the other she’s considered a reckless delinquent. Nothing about her situation has ever changed, until the day when she discovers a glitch: the arm she breaks in one life is perfectly fine in the other.
With this new knowledge, Sabine begins a series of increasingly risky experiments that bring her dangerously close to the life she’s always wanted. But if she can only have one life, which is the one she’ll choose?
A compelling psychological thriller about a girl who lives two parallel lives – this is Sliding Doors for the YA audience.
Review:
I had heard so much about Jessica Shirvington, one of the most popular YA Aussie authors, that I was pretty much bouncing with excitement when I was given the opportunity to FINALLY read one of her books.
And luckily, she didn’t let me down.
I think my favourite thing about Between the Lives was the likeliness to Sliding Doors. I really liked that movie but I actually enjoyed this YA approach better. I liked the way that it ventured into the previously untouched territory about the effects having this ability would have on the person with the ability. In one of her lives, Sabine was admitted into a mental hospital because she revealed her issue.
What I didn’t like, was how stereotypical her lives were. You had the two extremes, rich girl and goth girl, as well as their stereotypical parents, friends and lives.
The other thing that disappointed me, was how predictable it was. Could have seen that ending coming from miles away. Correction: I did.
But that being said, I totally enjoyed the last part of the book. That’s when it started to get very exciting and good and completely engrossing. I can’t complement the last 30% enough.
I thought that the ending was very sweet and all in all that the book was a good read. I liked that it was something a little different as well.
Ethan definitely grew on me and I’m fairly sad that the book ended when it did. I would have loved to see him and Sabine together more. I’d even read a sequel actually.
Between the Lives kind of met the bar I’d set after hearing about her Violet Eden series, as in the book was better than good, but it didn’t quite meet the bar I’d set after hearing about her latest book, Disruption.
I would probably recommend this to you if you liked her other books and/or the movie Sliding Doors.
3.5/5 comets
Looks like the start of an apocalypse! Nearly there.
Add to Goodreads
Author bio:
An entrepreneur, author, and mother living in Sydney, Australia, Jessica is also a 2011 & 2012 finalist for Cosmopolitan’s annual Fun, Fearless Female Award. She’s also one of the lucky few who met the love of her life at age seventeen: Matt Shirvington, a former Olympian and current sports broadcaster for Foxtel and Fox Sports. Married for twleve years with two beautiful daughters, Sienna and Winter, Jessica knows her early age romance and its longevity has definitely contributed to how she tackles relationships in her YA novels.