Publish Date: 7th August 2014Rating: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.
I read this book over a month ago I think, I wrote this review at the same time and it has been littering up my drafts, but finally, it is around publishing time so let's post. I received a copy of this free via NetGalley. I went in a bit warier when it came to this book, the previous two books I received through NetGalley did not meet my expectations, so I did not think this book would be as good as I had hoped. Luckily for me, this book went ahead and exceeded all my expectation, it was all I wanted and more.
My Initial thoughts
I liked the sound of this books premise. Its why I requested it on Netgalley. I mean how often do you get the opportunity to read a book about someone with 2 lives? This book really reminded me about the TV show Awake with Jason Isaacs. I only ever saw a couple of episodes and then it got cancelled, but it is a very similar premise. The idea of how simple changes can make a big difference to the way someone lives.
Initially, I was bored. I’m going to be honest. I could not understand how I was going to be drawn into this story, I could not understand where the story was going. Then I got a couple of chapters in everything started to click with me. Well, it started to click with me in her less than perfect life. Her ‘perfect’ life just bored me still, I kept thinking ‘why should I care that you are living a seemingly perfect life where you fake it ‘til you make it’'?’ because I didn’t get why I as a reader should care. Luckily, that thinking did not last all that long, I was still more eager to read one life than the other, but gradually that evened out as more things happened in both worlds.
I think the characters were really quite well written, even when I was bored I loved all the characters, I just didn’t get why I should care too much. And then I started caring. There were some twists that even I couldn’t predict happening in this book. I had moments where I was left gobsmacked going ‘wait…what?’ and I loved every second of it.
So why should you read?
I really enjoyed this book, way more than expected. Maybe it was my lowered expectations that helped me enjoy it, although thinking about it, I had no expectations. It was a book I got sent to read, and I went in having not heard anything about it, so there was nothing there to ruin it for me. It was nice to go in blind, you don’t get the too often in the blogosphere, books get hyped and I have a need to read them immediately, I don’t often go in blind before buying a book, I like to check out reviews and ratings before taking the plunge. It’s not too often I go into a book with no knowledge of what’s to come.
Anyway, what I am saying is, this a book that will surprise you with the depth held within it. It will surprise you with how attached you grow to the characters and how much you find yourself caring. It will just surprise you. This may surprise you, but this book had me in tears by the end. I was a mess and a wreck even though I'd already guessed the stuff about Ethan. It is such a surprising read and that’s why I loved it. It surprised me with a lot of the events in the book. The storyline surprised me because you are expecting sort of weird sci-fi style read but it is nothing like that, it is a contemporary read that has a few areas of science fiction thrown in. This is a book I think many will underestimate since the entire premise of the book as a bit out there, but the whole two lives thing is not really what this story is about, it’s all about choices and enjoying your life and realising that normal is subjective.
I hope anyone reading this will be tempted to go out and get this book because it's definitely worth a few hours of your life. I almost definitely guarantee you'll enjoy it.
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