Between the Lives by Jessica Shirvington

Title: Between the Lives
Author: Jessica Shrivington
Release Date: May 1st, 2013
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia 
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

Above all else, though I try not to think about it, I know which life I prefer. And every night when I Cinderella myself from one life to the next a very small, but definite, piece of me dies. The hardest part is that nothing about my situation has ever changed. There is no loophole.

Until now, that is... 

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?

After being disappointed by Just like Fate, I decided to pick up Between the Lives which had a similar concept. I was hoping to prove (to myself) that books that are based on this concept didn't all have to turn out bad, and I was right. This book provided me with a very interesting journey, and I was all set to give it a four until the last couple pages.

I am going to start off by saying that while the main character wasn't always likeable, she had a strong voice. Sometimes it just bothered me thar she didn't think at all about her other family. She loved them but she kept trying to find an easy way out. I understand why, I do, but that didn't stop me from being frustrated.

This story starts with the main character falling down the subway stairs and breaking her wrist. When she 'shifts' to her other life, it turns out that her wrist isn't broken. So are the rules changing? She wants a normal life, which is understandable, and so this was kind of a breakthrough for her, a way out of this whole situation and so she starts experimenting. When her parents find out, she decided to confess, which of course leads them into thinking that she is crazy.

Even with how things turned out when she confined in her parents, I was glad she did because it proves that she really wants someone to believe her and to help her.

Moving on to her parents. The author did a great job with them. There were two sets of them and each of the sets came with their flaws and their plus points, but more than that the author took some time to develop the parents as well. Her dad from her Roxbury life initially comes across as a bad guy but by the end of the book, I didn't hate him.

I really did like the development in her relatinship with her brothers in her Wellesley life. At first I really did not like how the author rolled them out but there was more to them and being the older sibling, I can understand in some ways (I am not justifying their actions here just saying I understand).

Her friends, though they didn't play such a significant part, were not actually just flat characters. They seemed to care about her and always asked when they thought something was wrong. One would assume that in her perfect life, her friends would be completely shallow but they weren't, which I was glad for.

Now to Ethan… Ethan.. was just..he was definitely one of the better love interests I’ve read about. I’ll admit to initially thinking things were moving too fast between them but I overlooked it because the author did take the time to develop their friendship before she did anything else. 

My first problem arises with the science aspect behind what was happening to her. I am going to go out on a limb here and compare this book with Every Day. While the latter was strictly a contemporary book, there was still this need in A (the main character) to find out why he/she was the way he/she was. Sabine on the other hand, just wanted a way out and that disappointed me because there wasn’t a lot of exploration into why she was the way she was. As a science geek I really would have liked that.

However my main problem with this book was the last couple of pages. Now I cannot say what happened but the event just seemed to come out of nowhere. I didn't think it was necessary. On top of that what happened right at the end was just plain cheesy. It just seemed like the easy way out. The author could have left the book with an open ending and that would have been a whole lot better.

On the whole, despite the ending that bothered the hell out of me, I would definitely recommend this.