One Past Midnight by Jessica Shirvington
Grade: B+
Release date: July 22, 2014
This e-galley was provided by NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA Children's in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: 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 which bring her dangerously close to the life she′s always wanted... But just what - and who - is she really risking?
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: One Past Midnight was a gripping tale that had me on the edge of my seat, always wondering what would happen next. If you're looking for an explanation of why Sabine shifts between her two lives, you won't get it. But I think the book was complete without it. Would I have liked to know? Sure, but it didn't completely ruin the story. At times it was hard to keep some of the different details straight, and towards the end, when the jumps between the two lives happened almost every paragraph, it got confusing. I was able to keep most everything straight, though, although it might've helped, had Sabine lived in places with less similar names (Roxbury and Wellesley). One romance moved a bit too quickly for my tastes, but I did enjoy it and (no spoilers) I enjoyed how it ended. Also, I loved the moment where Sabine had to translate something in Finnish. (Proud Finn, y'all!)
Language had its foul moments, romance was fairly clean and not too descriptive (although much was discussed about it being Sabine's first time), and there were incidents with alcohol and drugs, although most were never treated in a positive light. Finally, I do have a bit of a trigger warning. Someone gets very violent with their significant other to the point of beating them. If you can't read about moments like that, then you might want to avoid One Past Midnight.
The Verdict: Overall, I enjoyed this book immensely. It's definitely worth a read!
I loved this book! It was so different and unique. I loved Sabine. I do agree that the relationship moved a bit quickly, but I let it go because I was just so into the story. I really loved the way the author ended it. I thought it was super sweet. :)
ReplyDeleteThe premise of this reminds me a lot of David Levithan's "Every Day", which is a really thought-provoking book. You might want to give that a try if you haven't already read it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed this one! I have it for review and it sounds really interesting. Although, I'm not sure about a quickly moving romance...
ReplyDeleteGreat review!