4 out of 5 This was a swing in the dark; I saw it in a Dymocks catalogue as YA book of the month and thought I'd give it a crack .... I was not disappointed. Sabine practically lives every day twice, she is constantly swapping between her 2 lives, in one she is an impoverished delinquent, in the other a straight-A student with a rich family and the perfect boyfriend. She has always accepted that she is simply 'different', but when she breaks her arm in one life and it's fine in the other she begins a string of dangerous experiments to test her 2-dimensional life. After finally confessing to her impoverished life parents, they commit her to a psych ward where she meets Ethan, a 'doctor' who is supposed to help her get better, but actually helps her on her dangerous quest. She struggles between her 2 boyfriends and when she makes a decision it completely changes her lives forever. |
I really loved the various character personalities from her 4 parents, to her siblings and friends in each dimension. One thing I think made the book so special, was despite the fact that she lived two very different lives, she still remained the 'true' Sabine on the inside; despite being a spoilt rich girl in one and an almost emo, impoverished child in another. This was thoroughly expressed when her love for Ethan moved with her in each life, obviously causing issues.
I only had 2 issues with this book and they are minor ones;
- Her back story wasn't really explained; how did she get two lives, has she always had them, are there others like her. It left me really confused and almost wanted another book to explain the situation.
- Her motives were never quite explained, her experiments never quite made sense, and it had me truly questioning her sanity; why would she kill herself in the life where Ethan is present ?
All in all I truly enjoyed this book, it had a fantastic mix of characters and plot twists and the language and word building was just mature enough to land it on the older scale of YA, making it a truly mature and enjoyable read.
Hayley xx