Young Adult Book Reviews

Genre:  Realistic Fiction/Romance

# of Pages:  423

Abby Barnes wakes up one day to find that everything she thought was true about the last year of her life had been changed dramatically.  Instead of taking a drama class and eventually earning a role in a movie, she ended up taking an astronomy class and ended up attending Yale.  Her relationships with her best friend and two possible boyfriends were also affected with this switch.  Her best friend, who’s also a science genius, traces the change to the day that a major worldwide earthquake occurred and believes her life has been blurred with that of a parallel life.  Abby struggles to learn what that in fact means and if this disturbance  can keep affecting her life.  Every morning she wakes up to assess if her parallel has done anything to change her current present.   Meanwhile, she tries to keep her “double life” a secret so that no one knows just how crazy she believes she is.  Will this ever get fixed or will she be doomed to live this challenging life forever?

The idea of parallel lives is complicated and challenging, but Lauren Miller writes the story in a way that is absolutely understandable and even intriguing without being confusing.  There are many characters and while some feature more heavily than others they all impact Abby’s overall story.  The story gains momentum near the end and readers will want to see what ultimately happens to Abby and if she ever gains control of her life back.