Here by Denise Grover Swank

 

Title: Here

Author: Denise Grover Swank

Publisher: Createspace

Release Date: November 11, 2011
Received From: Author via Teen {Book} Scene

Summary:

Sixteen year old Julia Phillips buries herself in guilt after killing her best friend Monica in a car accident. Julia awoke in the hospital with a broken leg, a new talent for drawing and false memories of the accident, in which she dies and Monica lives. The doctors attribute this to her head injury, but no one can explain how a bracelet engraved with her name ended up at the scene of the accident. A bracelet no one has ever seen before.
Classmate Evan Whittaker paid Julia no attention before the accident, let alone after. Now suddenly he’s volunteering to tutor her and offering to drive her home. She can't ignore that his new obsession started after his two-day disappearance last week and that he wears a pendant she’s been drawing for months. When the police show up one night looking for Evan, he begs Julia to run with him, convincing her that Monica is still alive. Julia agrees to go, never guessing where he’s really from.

Review:

This book was not what I expected. From reading the first chapter/prologue I was unsure what to expect, but once I got into the meat of the book I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

 

Here is a science fiction book. But it also seemed to lean into the paranormal feel. After the accident Julia has new abilities and she has memories that did not actually happen, that combined with the popular boy suddenly paying more attention to her made me think that it was a paranormal book all the way up to when it becomes clear that it is a sci-fi novel.

 

The fact that Evan all of a sudden starts paying attention to her, and the fact that she all of a sudden starts being motivated was really odd and unfounded. Until I got into the story and started to understand why Evan was acting that way it was driving me nuts.

 

The other thing that didn’t make very much sense how all of a sudden everything started happening. Evan paid attention to her bracelet and then all hell broke loose. It was very strange and I wish it had been paced a little better.

 

The ending also seemed a little rushed but since it is a series I guess that is okay.

 

Even though the pacing could have been better I kept wanting to know what was going to happen. I was drawn in and did not want to stop until the end. This helped me to enjoy this book more, despite the pacing issues.

 

Overall this was an okay book, I would recommend it to fans of paranormal romances because the feeling was the same even though it wasn’t