Review: Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott

Title: Between Here and Forever
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 250
Release date: May 24th 2011
Genre: Contemporary YA
Source: Won in a giveaway by the author - thank you!
Find out more: Amazon ; Goodreads

Goodreads description:

Abby acepted 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...

First sentence:

I lean forward and look at Tess.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I was really excited to read this book. It's Elizabeth Scott (one of my favorite authors) and the story sounded amazing - grief, figuring out who you are, and romance are some of my favorite topics for books, and for some reason I love reading about sisters. And while I still loved the writing and tone of the Between Here and Forever (there's just somehting about Elizabeth Scott's writing), this book fell short of my expectations.

My main problem with Between Here and Forever is the main character, Abby. I tried to feel her pain and her struggle with Tess being in a coma. But... her insecurites really got on my nerves. I can't really explain why - usually I'm fine with characters that are very self-conscious, since I'm that way too. Abby's insecurities, though, are more than even I can handle. I can understand her being self-conscious because she's had to live in Tess's shadow for all her life, but her unwillingness to believe anyone could ever like her was overdone, in my opinion. How she kept talking about how unworthy of love is out loud to other people struck me as strange, too. Maybe that's just me, but I'm insecure about my insecurities, too - I don't want people to know how much I doubt myself. That aspect really  annoyed me, and when I can't relate to the main character, I feel somewhat removed from the whole story and can't really enjoy the book.

I also thought it was strange how Abby was so sure Tess was going to wake up and everything was going to go back to the way things were. Yeah, maybe she was in denial, but after a while shouldn't she have thought about Tess not waking up, or about Tess waking up but not being the same and not being able to go back to living her old life? The fact that Abby never doubted everything would go back to normal means that the issue of whether or not to continue life support was never addressed, and that really disappointed me, since that's a topic that fascinates me.

The secondary characters, though, are great. Like in every Elizabeth Scott book, they're fully-developed an complex. I loved reading about Tess and gradually finding out about her secrets. Eli is adorable - he's so sweet to Abby, and I really enjoyed reading about their relationship. Beth and Claire and their connection to Tess were interesting to read about too. Oh, and Clement is just awesome!

I've read some other reviews of this book saying that characters from Bloom make an appearance, but I honestly didn't notice. Can anyone who's read both Bloom and Between Here and Forever tell me what characters appear?

I feel kind of bad for giving Between Here and Forever only three stars. Other than being annoyed by the main character's low self-worth, I had no real problem with the book. I just felt somewhat underwhelmed throughout, and thought a lot of the problems could have been elaborated on more. That's not to say this is a bad book - Elizabeth Scott's writing is still great. But if you haven't read any of Elizabeth Scott's books, I recommend you'd start with a different one - Living Dead Girl or Stealing Heaven are ones I particualrly enjoyed.