Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott

TITLE: Between Here and Forever
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Scott
PUBLISHER/YEAR: Simon Pulse/2011
GENRE: YA, Contemporary
SERIES: Source
SOURCE: Local Library


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I'm of two minds about Between Here and Forever. I really want to like this book, but I'm not sure that I do. We meet Abby in the days following her sister Tess' accident. Tess is in a coma, completely unresponsive. Abby is sure she can never live up to Tess in person, let alone her memory. Tess is that girl that everybody loves. Everybody. So Abby comes up with a plan to wake Tess up. She'll get hot boy Eli to talk to her so Tess will have to wake up because then Eli and Tess can fall in love and be together. That's how life works right? Of course Abby learns things about herself and some major family drama along the way which supposedly changes everything. 


The thing about this book is that I'm so annoyed by Abby, the main character. I fully expected her to be depressed. I even expected her to have low self esteem, the jacket describes her as not measuring up to her older sister after all. But her self esteem is overwhelmingly low. She is convinced that nobody can love her, even her parents, because they love her sister so much. She's blinded and can't see beyond her own small, perception of the world. 


I was also bothered by some major insta love. Sure Abby doesn't admit she loves Eli right away and there were the ups and downs, but she pretty much falls for him right away. Eli on the other hand was a character I really wanted to know more about. His story seemed so interesting and he seemed to have a bit more depth. Abby is just so bogged down because she thinks that everybody loves her sister and therefore couldn't possibly love here. Eli on the other hand has his problems, but doesn't think he's completely worthless because of them. He has his insecurities, but they don't completely define him. He's a richer character; unfortunately, he's not not the main character. 


I was also bothered by the fact that I figured out the major secret almost immediately. The major secret that totally changes how Abby thinks once she discovers it. It was basically telegraphed within the first ten to twenty pages and I wanted to shake some sense into Abby once again for her blindness. 


I kept reading this book because I wanted to like Abby. I wanted to feel for her. She just ended up being too two-dimensional for me, no depth. It was too bad as it was a fairly character driven book. The romance was cute. I called it insta love and I stand by that, but it wasn't the worst case of it. It wasn't love at first site at least, just a little fast for my liking. Between Here and Forever was a flawed book for me, that I had high hopes for. I'm glad I ended up reading it, but I wish it had lived up to my expectations.