Title: Now That You’re Here

Author: Amy K. Nichols

Series: Duplexity #1

Publisher: Knopf Books For Young Readers

Source: borrowed from a friend

About: In a parallel universe, the classic bad boy falls for the class science geek.

One minute Danny was running from the cops, and the next, he jolted awake in an unfamiliar body – his own, but different. Somehow, he’s crossed into a parallel universe. Now his friends are his enemies, his parents are long dead, and studious Eevee is not the mysterious femme fatale he once kissed back home. Then again, this Eevee – a girl who’d rather land an internship at NASA than a date to the prom–may be his only hope of getting home.

Eevee tells herself she’s only helping him in the name of quantum physics, but there’s something undeniably fascinating about this boy from another dimension… a boy who makes her question who she is, and who she might be in another place and time.

WOWZIES THIS BOOK. A huge shout out to Hayden Beth for getting me to read this (a good friend of mine from home school co-op whose mom happens to be friends with the author, Amy Nichols – SMALL WORLD RIGHT?) and I am so excited that I’ve finished it. The page-turning events and adorableness of the characters kept me reading and I have to say I was not disappointed.

First things first: THERE’S A SEQUEL. That I really need to read. Luckily Miss Hayden has lent it to me so now I’ve just got to get around to it, and that is why I am confused about a lot of things. I’m *hoping* (and I am sure they will)  a lot of things are explained in the sequel. Like: Hayden, what the heck is “Red December”?

THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS I WANT TO KNOW. I’M DYING TO KNOOOOW.

The main character Eevee, and the other main character, Danny are cuteness overload. Now I do have one complaint: they barely knew each other at first annnnnd it went a little too fast for my taste. I could have gone a little longer with the whole getting to know you phase and THEN the actual romantic relationship between them two. But then they did get to know each other and I was so in love with them!! Yaaaasssss. 

And they were lovable. The character development, by the end at least, was well-done and I was satisfied with the getting-to-know-you part. I got to understand Eevee a little bit and why she was so type-A and very diligent in school. Danny… well, he still confuzzles me. But most boys do, even fictional ones. Another reason why I’m excited about the sequel. But as for the majority of the romance, I think I was on the same page as Hayden.

The world and setting of the story… very descriptive, as expected. The main character Danny has somehow come into a parallel universe (switching places with the Danny of this other world) so of course he’s sort of in the same world, but not really. Which is why I liked the nice comparison of Danny’s world to Eevee’s. You get a teensie peek inside what Danny’s world is like – apparently the Cold War didn’t end, unlike ours today, so it’s definitely… different. Again, excited for the sequel to find out more about the other world Danny comes from.

(Or made-up history! Haha!)

I liked the setting of Eevee’s world too though. The cliche high school set-up and the typical mom and dad personalities… they were familiar when some dude had come from a crazy, unfamiliar, and scary parallel universe -which I would be flipping out about if I were in this situation – and that was a nice balance. And the genius science teacher (Mac) who used to work for NASA and is Eeevee and her friend’s go-to man for all things smartsy. Who then helps get Danny back to his world. Kind of gave me a Doc and Marty McFly type feel, you know?

On that note, the whole book was kind of a mix of the movies “She’s All That” and “Back to the Future” and I loved that. Bad boy meets science geek (She’s All That) meets science-y sci-fi stuff and different worlds (Back to the Future)

I really feel like this is something I have never read before. At least, it’s the first parallel universe book I’ve read. But beyond that, it just had it all! The romance, the sci-fi, yet still the familiarity of our 21st-century-modern-day-world, the humor, the easy-to-love-characters, the mystery… AHHH I JUST LOVE IT!!

Four stars all-around. Pleeeeaaaaseee read it because it’s… well. Let the minions explain it:

have you read this book? do you want to? (you better!)