Review: Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott

Title:		Between Here and Forever
Author:		Elizabeth Scott
Publisher:		Simon & Schuster
Imprint:		Simon Pulse
Pub. Date:		06/07/2011
ISBN:		141699484X (ISBN13: 9781416994848)
Pages:		256

Abby accepted that she can’t measure up to her beautiful, magnetic sister Tess a long time ago, and knows exactly what she is: Second best. Invisible. 

Until the accident. 

Now Tess is in a coma, and Abby’s life is on hold. It may have been hard living with Tess, but it's nothing compared to living without her. 

She's got a plan to bring Tess back though, involving the gorgeous and mysterious Eli, but then Abby learns something about Tess, something that was always there, but that she’d never seen. 

Abby is about to find out that truth isn't always what you think it is, and that life holds more than she ever thought it could...

(Summary and cover via Goodreads)

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I'm really of two minds about this book. On the one hand there were some really fabulous elements to it. I think the story line was very interesting. It follows Abby, a girl who has always been in her older sister Tess's shadow. Following a car accident, Tess in now in  coma, and Abby feels secondary to Tess even more. Through the course of the book, Abby learns all about who her sister really was. This makes it easier to accept herself.

There were a lot of secrets in this book. The "big" one was pretty easy to guess from the beginning. I also appreciate that there was some diversity in the characters as well. The big problem I had was that I didn't like the main character. It seemed like every other sentence was Abby complaining about how she could never be perfect like her older sister. This didn't change until the very end, when there was sudden growth in character. Everything was then resolved in a flash. Until that point however, I just wanted Abby to STOP COMPLAINING. Her problems didn't really seem that big compared to some other characters, all of which were much easier to be sympathetic too. Probably because they didn't constantly obsess about their issues.

This will be a nice, fast summer read, if you can get past the main character. If you like tons of angst with a little romance on the side, you'll probably enjoy this book much more than I did. I guess I was a little disappointed because it seemed like it could be a great book. Some of the phrasing was fantastic. I could never get past my dislike of Abby though. In the end it was good, just not great.

Galley provided by publisher for review