Review: One Past Midnight by Jessica Shirvington

Title: One Past Midnight
Author: Jessica Shirvington
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Publishing Date: July 22nd 2014
Pages: 352
Genre: YA Sci-Fi
Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audio

  

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?

I have had my eye on this book since I first spotted the Australian version a year ago. I didn't know it was coming out in the US but I am glad it did. I grabbed the audio, gave it a listen, and loved loved loved it. One of my favorite reads of the year. It was different, it was sci fi, it was romance, it was pretty awesome. 

Sabine has been different all her life. She lives two lives, she always has and she sees no end to it. She has one life where she is the perfect daughter, girlfriend, best friend, and so on. She has the perfect life. In her other life she is the outcast, has a best friend, no boyfriend, and not so perfect life. Since she can remember, midnight hits, she transfers from one life to the other. Lives every day twice. She sees no end until she notices a glitch, a glitch that could lead to one happy life. She only needs to decide what life to live, who to leave behind, and how to say goodbye. She has it all figured out until she meets the boy that changes it all. She isn't just choosing a life now, she is choosing whether to love or leave. 

This book was a killer read. It was a wonderful story, sci fi but it felt like a realistic fiction. It was a story about choices, taking the good with the bad, realizing nothing is perfect and that maybe one's life is about more than their life. The sci-fi part, parallel lives... and that was it. It ended after those two worlds. The rest of the book was romance, realistic fiction, life and death, and family. The writing was beautiful and I was submerged by the second chapter. I fell in love with the characters and I was totally into the happenings of the story. The author did a wonderful job at writing the two lives to feel separate but the same. I was never confused who was who and I could feel the character's differences and similarities. It was very strange how the same and different they are. One thing that I always felt through both lives, Sabine was never her true self. She was somewhere in the middle of the two lives and I was only seeing her show half of herself. It was quite a journey to get to her complete self, with the help from a boy of course. 

Sabine really was a wonderful character. I liked her from the very beginning. I can't imagine what it would be like living two lives. She makes some pretty good points on why it sucks.... twice through everything, hormones, school, growing up... must suck. In adulthood there would be two jobs, to families or no families if you didn't want to do two. It would be difficult to keep everything straight, not sound crazy, and it would very exhausting. I guess two vacations and holidays wouldn't be so bad though. Sabine knows how hard it is and wants to end one life and just have one. Finding the way to do so is hard and seemed hopeless for a very long time, and then of course there is the choosing of which life to choose. This is when Sabine really truly finds out how hard its gonna be. Sabine was pretty steady throughout the entire book for me. I never lost who she really was even when she was switching lives. She was independent, caring, loyal, very intelligent, and determined. She was well loved in both lives but never truly happy or satisfied. She was missing something, the wow factor which is what she found in Ethan. 

Ethan was an amazing character. I loved him. He was perfect and just what Sabine needed. Thoughtful, exciting, a rule breaker when needed. The only problem, he was only in one life, the life Sabine didn't want to keep as her permanent life. Ethan spends his time with Sabine showing her the reason to live, the reasons to embrace both lives. I really liked Ethan. The romance was sweet, slow building, and just right. I found it the highlight of the book, of course, because it was done so right. I felt the realness whenever Ethan and Sabine were together. 

This book had a little bit of everything for me taking my read to perfection. I would read this book again and can't wait to add it to my bookshelf. 

Whether you like Sci-fi, romance, or realistic fiction, this book is a real gem.

Jessica Shirvington is the author of THE VIOLET EDEN CHAPTERS also known as THE EMBRACE SERIES, stand alone novel, BETWEEN THE LIVES and has an exciting new duology called DISRUPTION on the way in 2014.

An entrepreneur, author, and mother living in Sydney, Australia, Jessica is also a 2011 & 2012 finalist for Cosmopolitan’s annual Fun, Fearless Female Award. She’s also one of the lucky few who met the love of her life at age seventeen: Matt Shirvington, a former Olympian and current sports broadcaster for Foxtel and Fox Sports. Married for twleve years with two beautiful daughters, Sienna and Winter, Jessica knows her early age romance and its longevity has definitely contributed to how she tackles relationships in her YA novels.