Chapter by Chapter

Imagine having to live the same day twice, but in a different life?  Two lives, one memory.  Like a parallel universe, if you will.

In One Past Midnight by Jessica Shirvington, main character, Sabine, does just that.  She will live her life as Sabine with the black hair and, I’m gonna guess, Emo type image and just like Cinderella, when the clock strikes midnight, she shifts into Sabine with the long blonde hair and the perfect life.  But once again, come midnight, she shifts back to the other Sabine for another full day in that world.  Back and forth, back and forth.

But even though she switches into this completely different person, her memories from both worlds never leave her.  She remembers…good or bad, she remembers.  And until now, anything physical followed as well!  Cuts, dyed hair, ailments … But after breaking her arm as Emo Sabine, her fear was shifting to the Perfect Sabine world and try to explain how she ended up with a broken arm.  But her broken arm doesn’t follow her.  Her arm is perfectly fine.  And it’s at this point where Sabine decides to test her theory that the possibility of finally having one life could be a reality.

Unfortunately, her “flawless” plan gets thwarted by her parents.  Thinking that she could finally let loose all the secrets she had about her double life to the ones she thought she could count on the most (her parents), she instead ends up at a mental institute and on suicide watch.

Struggling with her decision to end one life so that she can thrive in another, Sabine feels more alone than ever until she meets Ethan.  As the nurse assigned to watch over Sabine and get her to open up, an unforgettable relationship starts to bloom…and Sabine’s plans become more complicated than she had bargained for.

I heart Jessica Shirvington.  Her Embrace series hooked me from day 1, and I was more than eager to read something else from her.  And let me tell you guys, for me, she did not disappoint.  I devoured One Past Midnight.  I loved the concept of living two entirely different lives in a parallel universe and remembering everything.

At first, I thought that it may be confusing reading a story that jumped between worlds, but in the end it was pretty flawless, especially since the main character knew what was happening, before and after.  I felt that everything flowed very smoothly.

The characters found in One Past Midnight are ones that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I was annoyed, at first, with Sabine’s plans of killing herself off in of her worlds, but as the story progressed, I understood where she was coming from.  Technically, she would be offing one version of her so that the other version of her could live a real life.  A life of no shifting, of being able to give herself completely to those she loved.  Without having to be self-conscious of slipping up and letting out the fact that she shifted and be labeled insane.  In the end, I found Sabine to be an extremely brave young woman, and I thoroughly enjoyed her character.

Another character that I adored was Ethan.  At first, stand-offish, but in the end, I just couldn’t get enough.  I couldn’t wait for Perfect Sabine to shift back to Emo Sabine so that I could see more of the interactions between her and Ethan.  Ethan was definitely a character that grew on you and once you have warmed up to the idea of him, you can’t let go.

Author, Jessica Shirvington, managed to shatter my heart and make my heart swell at, pretty much, the same time.  For myself, I pretty much figured out how everything would end from the get go, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to get lost in this beautiful story.

Fans of psychological reads and parallel universes will really enjoy One Past Midnight by Jessica Shirvington.