artsy musings of a bibliophile

Review: Parallel by Lauren Miller

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Parallel by Lauren Miller 
young adult contemporary science fiction published by HarperTeen on 14 May 2013

Abby Barnes had a plan. The Plan. She’d go to Northwestern, major in journalism, and land a job at a national newspaper, all before she turned twenty-two. But one tiny choice—taking a drama class her senior year of high school—changed all that. Now, on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Abby is stuck on a Hollywood movie set, miles from where she wants to be, wishing she could rewind her life. The next morning, she’s in a dorm room at Yale, with no memory of how she got there. Overnight, it’s as if her past has been rewritten.

With the help of Caitlin, her science-savvy BFF, Abby discovers that this new reality is the result of a cosmic collision of parallel universes that has Abby living an alternate version of her life. And not only that: Abby’s life changes every time her parallel self makes a new choice. Meanwhile, her parallel is living out Abby’s senior year of high school and falling for someone Abby’s never even met.
As she struggles to navigate her ever-shifting existence, forced to live out the consequences of a path she didn’t choose, Abby must let go of the Plan and learn to focus on the present, without losing sight of who she is, the boy who might just be her soul mate, and the destiny that’s finally within reach.

THE RATING

THE REVIEW

Paths are never straight; the road always twists and turns making its way across the earth as it could best. That always bothered me. What’s the point of taking the longer all-the-way route when you can take a shorter, straighter one? Isn’t it upto us whether we choose to go around the mountain or make our way through it? In its own way, Parallel answered that question for me.

Abby Barnes is one of those people who’ve always been sure of what they want in life. Abby never strays far from her path, her life revolving around a single goal and she’s always working towards it. It is very difficult for a person like that to be controlled by someone else’s choices. That someone else who is you and not you at the same time. There’s nothing solid left in life. Not that she can see anyway at first.
It’s like the first time we find out that the universe is not limited to the Milky Way, that Abby learns about the multiverse theory. About the possibility that there is her parallel whose decisions are impacting her present a year and a day away. She has to come to terms with it and look at all her relationships in a different light. See herself in a different light. 
The relationship dynamics are done brilliantly. Abby and Caitlin are best friends who go through the best and worst of times together. They’re friends today but the past could change their friendship drastically and it does. Josh is aloof, swoonworthy and deep whereas Michael is cool, confident and also, swoonworthy.
Books with dual point-of-views provide a more insightful look with different perceptions of the same story. In Parallel, a new one comes up after a seemingly unimportant decision. But what parallel Abby or Abby does today can affect her path but never her destiny. This is what Parallel explores.
It is exciting and nerve-racking to see where would Abby find herself when she wakes up in the morning. Will it be Michael who she wants or Josh who her parallel wants. Life is unpredictable but Abby’s life is more so than usual. Parallel is beautifully intense and thought-provoking. I loved the elements of sci-fi thoroughly used in the book as a way of explanation. The way contemporary was mixed in with sci-fi makes Parallel a one of a kind book. I really wish this was a series. Alas, the ending was perfect so I wouldn’t want that to change.

THE QUOTES

‘The delicious, semiconscious, edge-of-wonderland kind of sleep, where I’m awake enough to control my dreams but asleep enough to forget that I’m doing it.’
‘That’s the funny thing about life. We’re rarely aware of the bullets we dodge. The just-misses. The almost-never-happeneds. We spend so much time worrying about how the future is going to play out and not nearly enough time admiring the precious perfection of the present.’

Descending into the Sci-Fi Month

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It’s happening! Click above for the schedule.
I’m a science person. I wasn’t always one but when I was forced to study biology in O ‘Levels, I ended up loving it so much that I took science subjects in A ‘Levels and wanted to become a doctor. That didn’t happen. So in college, I chose Environmental Sciences with a minor in Food and Nutrition. Even though I had no idea what I was doing at the time, it turned out to be the perfect major for me to study. No wonder I love environmental sci-fi so much.
However, as a kid, I used to read books with morals in them (Enid Blyton) and the ones with little or no morals (Francine Pascal) so it was the discovery of Harry Potter that really led to my love for sci-fi fantasy. I’ve always been fascinated by aliens, browsing UFO sightings online, the concept of time travel as well as alternate realities owing to my obsession to The X-Files. Despite not reading or watching hardcore sci-fi (umm Star Wars and Doctor Who), I’ve been more than happy with my PlayStation, Dan Brown novels, popular sci-fi YA and of course, The X-Files.

I’ve been anticipating Sci-Fi Month ever since I discovered that Rinn over at Rinn Reads is hosting it. I’m so glad to be a part of such an amazing event! We’re using the hashtag #RRSciFiMonth for the event. Click the banner above for the schedule with over fifty blogs participating. Whoa.

But Why Sci-Fi?

The core of all fiction is imagination and how creative one can get with it. Sci-fi pushes the boundary of imagination with each new sub-genre that pops out. Even within the sub-genres there is endless ways a story can move forward and end up somewhere unventured. I love how sci-fi convolute facts and data, giving it the shape of something strange and intriguing. Like a whole new freakin’ planet!

Is there a plane ticket I can buy to get to Pandora, please? (Source)
I absolutely love Inception, Avatar, Megamind, WALL-E, and Iron Man movies whereas, movies like The Day After Tomorrow, Source Code, The Adjustment Bureau, Limitless and Looper are really good.

I Spy Sci-Fi

Science fiction is a pretty solid genre which means there are countless of books in just YA to read from this month. I’ve been saving up Cinder and Scarlet for this reason alone and I’m currently half-way done with Parallel.
I hope to read at least half of the books I want to. Here’s what I’m looking at:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
Parallel by Lauren Miller
Acid by Emma Pass
These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
The Loop by Shandy Lawson
Reboot by Amy Tintera
Relativity by Cristin Bishara
Tandem by Anna Jarzeb
Pawn by Aimee Carter
Avalon by Mindee Arnett

Apart from reading, I’m also planning on watching at least one Star Wars movie as well as start Doctor Who. I also want to make time for other sci-fi movies like Oblivion and Pacific Rim. I’m excite!

Sci-Fi Takes Over

I’m going to be posting sci-fi related posts twice a week. Here’s a preview of what’s to come: 
– Sci-Fi in YA: From alternate realities, robots and aliens to futuristic, space travel and cyberpunk, YA has it all. I’ll be discussing the popular sub-genres and more.
– Essentials of Sci-Fi: What does a typical sci-fi book contains and if it doesn’t, then what? 
– Time Travel in Sci-Fi: Ever since I read and loved All Our Yesterdays, I’ve been obsessed with time travel so I’ll be exploring the genre in detail.
– The Good Scientist: There’s no lack of bad scientists with evil plans to take over the world in sci-fi. Where are the good scientists?
– Top Ten Tuesdays the Sci-Fi Editions: What are the sci-fi covers I want to redesign? What sci-fi books would I recommend and what sci-fi stuff am I thankful for? Read all about it on Tuesdays on the blog!
– Book Reviews: First one up is All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill and then Parallel by Lauren Miller.
Let’s science it up!

Monthly Recap: October

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I went into October with full force with plans to have fun after submitting my thesis and reading creepy books to well, creep myself out. I failed big time.

LIST OF NEWSWORTHY

Thesis Blues
I got done with my thesis and submitted it for review. The hardest part is over and now I just have to correct a few mistakes here and there (hopefully) and be done with it.

Cover Overload
A ton of cover reveals happened this month. I particularly loved the covers of Tease which is actually a shiny silver instead of grey in print and The Half Life of Molly Pierce.

Tweeple Crazy
Early October Eve, Reem, Lillian and I got all crazy during a Twitter chat. I reached 15K tweets, we raged, we laughed, YouTubed, Eve turned into a villain, Reem was awesome like always, Lillian got jailed. It was just fun, fun, fun.

I also took part in #bookishparty hosted by Judith and Cassie and thought I arrived pretty late to the party, it was still a lot of fun.

Frienemy and What Not
I met my BFF (we call each other frienemy ha ha) and other close friends after a few months, went for dinner, had a sleepover. It was so much fun and over all too quickly.

Vampire Academy Ruined
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the train wreck that is VA’s poster. That tagline? Ew. Twitter really exploded all over it because duh, it is baaad. I’ve lost ALL my faith in the movie now. I can’t even.

Road Trips are Fun
I had to be back home before Eid and there was some issue with flights going on and the only available plane tickets were really expensive. Luckily my brother and sister-in-law were in Islamabad so we decided that I take a 4-hour bus ride to Islamabad, spend a day there and then road trip home with them. The trip took 15-hours and I tried to read Throne of Glass but I was too sleepy and tired so I just majorly slept and took a lot of photos.

Old is Gold
One of my high school friends lives in Islamabad now. We met after 6 years, had breakfast together and caught up on our lives. Such a great feeling.

Windows 8.1
I’m one of those people who just love Windows 8 and the slight improvements done in Windows 8.1 are just perfect. It’s all so sleek and shiny. 

TV WATCH

I really have no words for Revenge, I just know that this season is going to be the best ever!

The Vampire Diaries came back and it’s better than ever! Silas and Ripper Stefan is just too hot to handle.
The Originals also proved to be one of the top shows for me because well, it has the Mikaelson brothers and I now actually like Rebecca.
I watched the pilot episode of True Blood because Eve couldn’t shut up about the hotness that is Alexander Skarsgård. He didn’t show up. Instead there was a lot of ugly human-vampire sex. Ugh.
I’m feeling so much for Schmidt in New Girl.
I just love Adam Samberg in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
I decided to not watch Sleepy Hollow anymore because it just doesn’t appeal to me all that much.
I wish they’d already get to the wedding in How I Met Your Mother but I’m not complaining much.
The Big Bang Theory is just so ridiculously hilarious this season. The last two episodes were the best ever!
Super Fun Night‘s premiere was so bad, I can’t even. How ugly can you get with fat jokes? I hope the show dies. Not watching!
I was excited for The Tomorrow People but it was more focused on the politics of it all than the superpowers. Meh.
I watched Mistresses and I don’t even know why. Oh yeah, I know. I want to finish the first season and be done with the awful show.
I finally finished the first season of Arrow and actually liked the last few episodes to want to watch season two.
Reign is a little too melodramatic for my taste but I’m definitely watching it.
Awkward is just aww, love it.
I’ve yet to watch Pretty Little Liars, Ravenswood, The Carrie Diaries and Dracula so yeah.

MOVIE WATCH

So I’ve officially watched 50 movies this year. I felt like tracking it so I’ve no idea if this is too much for me or what. I’m very excited for Non-Stop (Liam Neeson, guys!), Frozen, Pompeii and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.

Despicable Me 2 (thumbs up) – I love those minions. So adorable! 

3 (thumbs down down) – A Tamil movie I watched with subtitles on because well, I don’t know why but it sucked.

LIST OF READS

I read 0 books this month and I’m horrified because it has been years since that happened… It feels so weird. I mean it wasn’t like I didn’t want to read but then more than half a month passed like a blur. By the time I settled back into home, I just wanted to laze around and do absolutely nothing except eat, sleep and binge on TV shows.

LIST OF BLOGPOSTS

I thought of scraping this part out but well, here goes: 
I posted my introduction to Horror October.
I posted a blogpost on Horror in YA.

LIST OF BOOK BUYS

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Insomnia by Stephen King
Parallel by Lauren Miller

PLAYLIST

Grooveshark’s not working for me at the moment so I’ll post the playlist in a while.
How was your October? I want to know!

Horror in YA

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There is no lack of gory details and slasher attacks in horror and a zombie apocalypse always seem to be the next big thing. There is a reason why we love Dexter, Ripper Stefan and The Walking Dead on TV and why we’d be willing to read such books. However, most of us seem to like a genre obsessively while reading others only occasionally so we need the occasional genres to be irresistible. I’m pretty much a contemporary girl which is why I need a paranormal as good as the Vampire Academy or a dystopia as good as The Hunger Games to reel me in. But what to read when it comes to YA horror?
Classic horror like Flowers in the Attic and Frankenstein will never cease to creep out generations to come and horror movies like the Evil Dead will never cease to reboot. But it is cringe-worthy for any YA readers to see The Mortal Instruments series, or the Twilight saga for that matter, being classified as horror. Yes, horror is hard to define which is why it works as a perfect disguise in fiction. There are things that go bump in the night in a seemingly contemporary fiction and I love when that happens. Horror exists in YA because there is no lack of demons, monsters, spirits and zombie but good horror needs to be filtered out. 

Monstrous

Ghosts, ghouls and possessed souls are a forte of YA writers like Patrick Ness (A Monster Calls), Gretchen McNeil (Possess), Kendare Blake (Anna Dressed In Blood), Nova Ren Suma (Imaginary Girls), Brenna Yovanoff (The Space Between) and Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children). What’s a ghost story without it being a psychological thriller? I like it when books make me question the reality. Creepy but titillating like White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick and Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore. 
Mind takes over sleep in Insomnia by J. R. Johansson, Bad Girls Don’t Die by Katie Alender and Sleepless by Thomas Fahy. While, Mary Lindsey’s Shattered Souls is all about helping the lost souls and boarding school horror is all too real in Frost by Marianna Baer and Possessions by Nancy Holder.

Dark

Whether it’s murder on the island as retold in Gretchen McNeil’s Ten or how Victor Frankenstein came to be in Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavor, retellings are always hard to resist. Jackson Pearce is doing it in her Fairytale Retellings series. Meanwhile, gothic retellings such as Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson, The Madman’s Daughter by Megan Shepherd and New Girl by Paige Harbison are also on the rise.

Kill

Murders are always interesting. A serial killer on the loose makes for a great horror mystery story such as Barry Lyga’s I Hunt Killers series, Stefan Petrucha’s Ripper (coincidence much?) or Robin Wasserman’s The Waking Dark. Killers are dark, psychotic and violent but the best part is that they could totally be even real and get haunted by the kills (Velveteen by Daniel Marks). A killer imaginary friend exists Damage by Anya Parish which is nothing compared to the inhumane creatures in prison in Alexander Gordon Smith’s Lockdown.

Devils

What’s better than falling in love with a beast? Falling in love with a devil (April Genevieve Tucholke’s Between series). But the horror truly begins when demonic beings come to inhabit humans in The Devouring by Simon Holt. Historical horror is very much alive in books like The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey, The Diviners by Libba Bray, Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard and Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough. Lia Habel’s Dearly, Departed an antique era has been modeled in the future and there are zombies to be reckoned with. ‘What if’ should’ve been declared a genre by now.

Rotten

We’re all prepared for a zombie apocalypse in some way. Or is it just me? Seriously, what can happen during a zombie apocalypse (Courtney Summers’ This is Not a Test) or in a post-apocalyptic zombie world (Carrie Ryan’s The Forests of Hands and Teeth)? What if a zombie falls in love with you (Isaac Marion’s Warm Bodies), infects you with a zombie virus (Mira Grant’s Newflesh trilogy) and you barely escape from a zombie hunter (Jonathan Maberry’s Benny Imura series) only to start decaying into something other than a typical zombie (Rotters by Daniel Kraus)? Clearly I’m just going off a wild tangent here.
And oh, vampires are truly scary creatures in Darren Shan’s A Living Nightmare (Cirque Du Freak).

Dead Set

There is more YA horror to come in the future. Sequels aside, Nova Ren Suma is set to release her YA ghost story The Walls Around Us in 2015 while Gretchen McNeil’s latest release, 3:59, is about creepy overlapping parallel universes. The Troop by Nick Cutter is a survivor story of boy scouts on a deserted island while in Dead Set by Richard Kadrey there’s a strange presence in Zoe’s dreamscape.
So there you have it, the many kinds of horror YA to devour on. It’s a great way to scare yourself snuggled under a blanket during winters, isn’t it?
Also, if you want to read more about YA Horror, I found an article by SLJ on how Horror in YA Lit is a Staple, Not a Trend and there’s also a Horror Writers Association for YA.

Fourteen Days of Horror October

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Click the image for more #LEHorrorOctober posts.

“I think… someone is standing behind you.” 

Alright, alright, I confess that that line has fooled me on many occasions and I don’t like to speak much about it or at all. So why am I doing this? Because creepy books are my guilty pleasures. I’m not kidding. I pretty much went straight from reading sweet little kid stories by Enid Blyton to R. L. Stine. His Fear Street and Goosebumps series were fodder for a 12-year-old me. I did try watching horror TV shows and movies but failed horribly (see what I did there). I go from normal to freaking out under sixty seconds just because a scary thought creeped into my mind and BAM! 
Two of my friends have been pushing me watch Evil Dead and I might cave in but who knows, right? Right.
So when Leanne from Literary Excursion had this thrilling idea for Horror October, I was all over it. I’ve somehow lost touch with the horror genre as I grew up and I’d like to finally catch up.

All the Horror-Related Confessions

Everyone has these, right?

– I’ve never read a Stephen King book. *runs and hides*

– I love Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I’m fascinated by the monster. Yes, I’m weird.
– If I ever do dress up on Halloween (we don’t celebrate it), I’d totally dress up as a Gryffindor first. Rules of being a Potterhead and if you don’t agree then Avada Kedavra!
– I like blood and gore but too much of it disgusts me which is why I wonder how on earth did I ever want to become a brain surgeon. (I still do. Clearly I’m deluded and sad).
– Sinister looking jack-o’-lanterns creep me out. So do those scary-looking rubber masks. Ew.

Oh, the Horror of Reading Horror!

From classic horror to the standard serial killers and the ghostly undead, I’ll be reading a variety of horror books this month. There isn’t a set number but it is essential that I read some *points to The Shining* 
I’ll also be re-reading some of the R. L. Stine books I own which is still in the works because they’re back at home and I’m not. *pouts* 

The Shining by Stephen King
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Ten by Gretchen McNeil
Insomnia by Stephen King
I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
Feed by Mira Grant
Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
I’m pretty satisfied with my list and more than ready to begin.

Horror is More Than Just a Genre

It’s not all about me reading. I’ll be posting all sorts of horror posts. 

– Essentials of Horror: Be it the undead or the living dead, there are certain elements that have to be present to make any book a horror book.

– Horror in YA: What do YA readers like to read when it comes to horror? 
– Books about Horror on Deserted Islands: Such books are pretty much staple when it comes to horror but the good news is that they never grow old. I’ll also be talking about why are settings important.
– Top Ten Tuesdays the Horror Editions: From scary-to-look-at book covers to scary character names, I’ve got it all covered.
– Book Reviews: First one up is Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard.
Let the horror begin!