Date(s) read: September 26, 2012
Genre: YA Sci-Fi Contemporary

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SYNOPSIS
Camden Pike has been grief-stricken since his girlfriend, Viv, died. Viv was the last good thing in his life: helping him rebuild his identity after a career-ending football injury, picking up the pieces when his home life shattered, and healing his pain long after the meds wore off. And now, he’d give anything for one more glimpse of her. But when Cam makes a visit to the site of Viv’s deadly car accident, he sees some kind of apparition. And it isn’t Viv.

The apparition’s name is Nina, and she’s not a ghost. She’s a girl from a parallel world, and in this world, Viv is still alive. Cam can’t believe his wildest dreams have come true. All he can focus on is getting his girlfriend back, no matter the cost. But things are different in this other world: Viv and Cam have both made very different choices, things between them have changed in unexpected ways, and Viv isn’t the same girl he remembers. Nina is keeping some dangerous secrets, too, and the window between the worlds is shrinking every day. As Cam comes to terms with who this Viv has become and the part Nina played in his parallel story, he’s forced to choose—stay with Viv or let her go—before the window closes between them once and for all.

My Thoughts

Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for providing me a review copy of this book!

This was a CRAZY little book! I do have to say that when I first started reading this, I was expecting a ghost story or something of the like — NOT the story I received.

But first, can I just talk about that GORGEOUS cover? That was the first thing that drew me to the book — the reflection in the water, the bold font, the colours! I have to say that the girl on the cover is just slightly misleading because the story is told from the viewpoint of the main character, Camden, who is getting over the loss of his girlfriend, Vivian in a car crash. 

I thought this was an interesting read. I wasn’t hooked from the first page, though. I was a little annoyed with the main character and his depressing attitude for the first few chapters. It kind of reminded me of reading Kendare Blake’s Girl of Nightmares, where the main character there, Cas, was getting over losing his girlfriend. Maybe I’m just wanting my male leads a little more snarky or masculine, but that was my one gripe with the intro. I felt that it slowed the story down a bit.

BUT the instant Nina appears, the story picked up and things STARTED HAPPENING!

I loved the whole otherworld quality of this book. I loved how the characters in one world seemed different in the other world. It reminded me a lot of Coraline by Neil Gaiman and how Coraline found a different family in another dimension of her home, but that family was extremely different from her normal family. I loved that Camden was so caught up with seeing his dead girlfriend alive in this alternate universe that his judgment was completely thrown out the window. Of course, his moodiness, angst, and the fact that he just couldn’t listen to reason got to me after a while.

This is very much a character-driven story. Aside from the few school scenes that happen, the whole story revolves around the main characters and not that much else. Part of me wanted to explore MORE of the alternate world and have something other than the story between Camden and Vivian. Still, there is plenty of mystery — and even romance! — to keep the reader satisfied.

This was a super quick read and I managed to get through it in one sitting. If you’re a fan of creepy otherworld type of books, this is one to read. It might be slightly predictable — I called a few things before they happened — but it was still a good, unique read.

(One MAJOR issue I had lies not with the pages between the covers, but the synopsis of the book — there is a LOT given away in that synopsis! I wish it had been left a little more vague because we don’t need to hear the whole story before reading it. If you plan to read this story, you might want to avoid reading the WHOLE synopsis beforehand.)

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