Review: Dissonance

DISSONANCE
Dissonance
Erica O'Rourke
Paranormal-ish Young Adult
496 pages
Simon & Schuster
Available July 22nd
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Delancy Sullivan has always known there’s more to reality than what people see. Every time someone makes a choice, a new, parallel world branches off from the existing one. Eating breakfast or skipping it, turning left instead of right, sneaking out instead of staying in bed ~ all of these choices create an alternate universe in which an echo self takes the road not travelled and makes the opposite decision. As a Walker, someone who can navigate between these worlds, Del’s job is to keep all of the dimensions in harmony.

Normally, Del can hear the dissonant frequency that each world emits as clear as a bell. But when a training session in an off-key world goes horribly wrong, she is forbidden from Walking by the Council. But Del’s not big on following the rules and she secretly starts to investigate these other worlds. Something strange is connecting them and it’s not just her random encounters with echo versions of the guy she likes, Simon Lane.

But Del’s decisions have unimaginable consequences and, as she begins to fall for the Echo Simons in each world, she draws closer to a truth that the Council of Walkers is trying to hide ~ a secret that threatens the fate of the entire multiverse.

MY THOUGHTS
Dissonance brings some interesting things to the multiverse table, focusing on a number of different worlds and how they're all interwoven instead of allowing us to watch one or two lives unfold in distinctly separate ways. As with nearly all the stories that attempt to explain the existence of parallel worlds, there are of course moments when our minds can't fully wrap around what's being described for us, but on the whole Ms. O'Rourke does a truly impressive job of explaining the specifics and terminology of Walking between the Key World and the Echoes. We're grounded in a reality we recognize–complete with fully relatable high school moments given Del attends regular school despite the paranormal aspects of her life–but beautifully threaded through the normalcy is infinite possibility, Echo upon Echo piquing our curiosity with their mere existence.

Del is the type of character that when described outside the context of her story sounds as though she would be extraordinarily frustrating, her tendency to flaunt her disregard for authority and Walk as she sees fit something that normally would cause a series of eye rolls and mournful shakes of the head. Within her world and her family life however, her occasional recklessness and desire to Walk outside the strict rules and regulations of the Consort makes sense, and while there are moments when we want her to think a touch more before acting, we also can't help but find ourselves rooting for her to show her largely disapproving family that she's more than they give her credit for.

The only minor drawback keeping Dissonance from one of those rare higher ratings is the romance between Del and Simon, a fairly typical popular boy from her school. Del's crush on him is completely understandable and one of the things about her that stretches across the barrier of fiction and yanks us into her reality, our minds instantly taking us back to our own high school selves and the crushes we had on those who seemed unattainable. The problem with their relationship as it begins to unfold is that while Del's feelings seem utterly genuine (and painful at times), Simon's are less believable, his sole interest (in all his various forms, Echo or Original) appearing to involve only getting her alone and moving their romance forward on an intimate level. When events force a change in their relationship, his focus shifts away from what Del can do for him physically and to what she can do for him as a Walker, and he never quite manages to completely convince us his feelings extend beyond simple need.

Overall however, Dissonance is the type of read that raises questions and encourages discussion, our first desire when we close the back cover to immediately hand it off to the next person so we'll have someone to talk to about everything that already happened as well as everything that could happen in future installments. We're left with Del's world in chaos, both physically and emotionally, but luckily no brutal cliffhanger is waiting to shatter our hearts at the end. Instead, we part ways with this first installment with the gift of hope clutched tight to our chests and anticipation singing in our blood as we start the countdown to book two.

Rating: 4/5
 

Find Erica:

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Review: One Past Midnight

ONE PAST MIDNIGHT
Jessica Shirvington
Paranormal-ish Young Adult
352 pages
Walker Children's/Bloomsbury
Available July 22nd
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
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?

MY THOUGHTS
One Past Midnight is a story we enter into with not only enthusiasm but also a touch of wariness, knowing this is not the first book that features parallel lives or universes to make its way into our hands. So many times in these types of stories the focus is on the hows and whys of the world, and we ultimately spend our time trying to figure out which life the protagonist will choose for themselves in the end. While those same questions are present in One Past Midnight, they’re solidly in the periphery, the strength of Ms. Shirvington’s characters stealing all our attention from page one and holding on to it so thoroughly that we can’t worry about whether or not every aspect of our curiosity is sated by the time we reach the last page.

Sabine’s circumstances are a touch unusual in terms of parallel worlds in that she’s fully aware of both her lives; we don’t simply meet two separate versions of her and follow both of them thorough their respective days, instead she lives every single day twice – once with one family and once with another. She takes her memories from both lives with her when she shifts every night at midnight, and we meet her when she's finally reached a place where she’s figured out how to juggle the strangeness of her existence. 

What’s particularly interesting about this setup is the fact that while Sabine has two different roles to play depending on which life she’s currently living, we get to know her as both girls but yet also as neither, our relationship with her a unique one that exists in those quiet, empty spaces on either side of midnight as she reorients herself to her current world. We feel her fear; her unrelenting terror at the prospect of forever living out both of these lives while pieces of her true self are left behind in the life she’ll pick up again tomorrow, and as things progress, her desperation to find a way to exert some control over her situation becomes our own. 

Woven through her confusion and her desire to unburden the truth of her reality on a single soul is the type of romance that leaves an indelible mark, building so slowly that we thrum like live wires while reading, the anticipation of their emotional and physical intimacy a gorgeously addicting thing. Ms. Shirvington, as she proved with her Violet Eden series, has a gift for writing painful relationships; the love between her characters so beautifully visceral that it’s nearly impossible not to get caught up in them. The romance between Sabine and Ethan is absolutely no different, and when we reach the end, we find ourselves with tear tracks on our cheeks but a wobbly smile on our faces, thankful for the story we’ve just been treated to yet desperately in need of something adorably cute to help us recover. 

Overall, One Past Midnight should not be missed, the story not so much that of two parallel lives but rather of one remarkable girl and the unification of her self thanks to a split in her worlds.

Rating: 4.5/5 

Find Jessica:

Website • Blog • Facebook • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Review: Tandem

TANDEM
Many Worlds #1
Anna Jarzab
Young Adult/Parallel Worlds
428 pages
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Available now
Source: BEA

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Everything repeats.
You. Your best friend. Every person you know.
Many worlds. Many lives--infinite possibilities.
Welcome to the multiverse.

Sixteen-year-old Sasha Lawson has only ever known one small, ordinary life. When she was young, she loved her grandfather's stories of parallel worlds inhabited by girls who looked like her but led totally different lives. Sasha never believed such worlds were real--until now, when she finds herself thrust into one against her will.

To prevent imminent war, Sasha must slip into the life of an alternate version of herself, a princess who has vanished on the eve of her arranged marriage. If Sasha succeeds in fooling everyone, she will be returned home; if she fails, she'll be trapped in another girl's life forever. As time runs out, Sasha finds herself torn between two worlds, two lives, and two young men vying for her love--one who knows her secret, and one who thinks she's someone she's not.

MY THOUGHTS
Tandem is not a story that has a wholly unique premise; instead by all appearances it's but one more in a growing group to embrace the parallel universes trend in YA fiction, complete with a romance in the form of a triangle to ensure tension and drama run high. What we soon discover after the first several chapters though is that the blurb doesn't come close to doing the story justice, and Sasha's tale stands out as memorable – a bright blinding light amidst the din – leaving the familiar aspects to which the blurb allludes at the door. While the world building doesn't necessarily wow us nor does the concept of analogs (doubles) mesmerize us with its creativity, Ms. Jarzab bleeds newness into a familiar setup with her characters, Sasha and Thomas yanking us as forcefully into their story as they themselves are yanked through the tandem and into the middle of a war.

Tandem requires a slight adjustment period in the beginning, the format throwing us off ever-so-slightly as we're bounced from Sasha's first-person perspective to short chapters detailing Thomas's actions in third-person to brief snippets of the real Julianna and her current predicament. Majority of our time is spent with Sasha however, and we quickly see how valuable our brief detours with Thomas and Julianna are in deciphering the political complexities of Sasha's new world. Though we suspect certain things before they're revealed to us in truth, it's clear to us that identifying all the players complicit in both Julianna's absence and Sasha's presence in the United Commonwealth of Columbia is only a single thread of a much larger web, one we see glistening out of the corner of our eyes as we focus straight ahead only to have it disappear when we turn our heads in an effort analyze it more closely.

Though the synopsis suggests a love triangle between Sasha, Thomas, and Prince Callum (who we learn early on is betrothed to Julianna as part of an attempted peace agreement), he doesn't come into play until midway through the story, and by then Sasha's heart – a bit battered and bruised – belongs only to Thomas. She doesn't play games or waffle between the two of them, and though Callum is upfront about his desire for their marriage to be real and not a mere facade to appease their families, the only real drama created by his presence is the guilt Sasha feels about having to play her role. Her relationship with Thomas is one full of just enough hurt and betrayal to have lumps take up permanent residence in our throats, but the two of them are never frustratingly dramatic, their pain genuine and believable even as the weight of their situation starts to crush us into so much dust.

We're left with things far from concluded, the unrest in Julianna's world at an all time high just as we're forced back to our own reality, but though we have lingering questions, they're not the kind that haunt us and drag our overall enjoyment down the more we think about them. Tandem is full of twists and turns but yet is not altogether unpredictable, rather it feels as though we've traveled a highlighted portion of a maze, granted a false sense of comfort thanks to the things we're allowed to uncover seemingly on our own, but out there off the beaten path we've traveled in this first book lie all the dark offshoots we've yet to see, and I for one can't wait to discover where they lead in book two.

Rating: 4/5

Find Anna:

Website • Blog • Facebook • Twitter • Amazon • Goodreads

This book was given to me by the publisher at BEA  free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Waiting on Wednesday: Tandem

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine and is a fun way to see what books other bloggers just can't wait to get their hands on!

TANDEM

Anna Jarzab

Young Adult

Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Releases October 8th

THE STORY (from Goodreads)

Everything repeats.
You. Your best friend. Every person you know.
Many worlds. Many lives--infinite possibilities.
Welcome to the multiverse.

Sixteen-year-old Sasha Lawson has only ever known one small, ordinary life. When she was young, she loved her grandfather's stories of parallel worlds inhabited by girls who looked like her but led totally different lives. Sasha never believed such worlds were real--until now, when she finds herself thrust into one against her will.

To prevent imminent war, Sasha must slip into the life of an alternate version of herself, a princess who has vanished on the eve of her arranged marriage. If Sasha succeeds in fooling everyone, she will be returned home; if she fails, she'll be trapped in another girl's life forever. As time runs out, Sasha finds herself torn between two worlds, two lives, and two young men vying for her love--one who knows her secret, and one who thinks she's someone she's not.

The first book in the Many-Worlds Trilogy, Tandem is a riveting saga of love and betrayal set in parallel universes in which nothing--and no one--is what it seems.

Parallel lives seem to be the new trend in YA fiction, moving the classic trio of vamps, weres, and fairies out of the way, and slowly displacing dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories. I have to say this is a trend I'm a fan of. There's just something fascinating to me about the possibility of another me out there somewhere living a completely different life (a royal life!). My little brain just goes crazy pondering the nature vs. nurture implications of another me, and I'm a nerd, so I think it's easy to get why that makes me happy. Yes, it sounds like there's a love triangle in there *shudder* but I'm hoping for the best!