Title: Between Here and Forever
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Release Date: May 24, 2011 (hardcover)
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 256
Source: Bought

Overall: 4 Stars

Summary:

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... 

My Thoughts:
It's no secret that Elizabeth Scott is among one of my favourite YA contemporary authors. She can take an ordinary plot and make it her own in a very special way. And all the while, it seems so easy for her to do so. I always get excited reading a new novel of hers because I always know she's going to offer her own little twists that could leave me laughing in stitches or really sympathetic to her characters.

Between Here and Forever leans toward the sad and serious side this time around, but there are definitely small moments that lighten the mood to break the tension. Abby's sibling relationship with Tess is a very complicated one. Half of Abby hates Tess for always being the one with all the attention while she remains in the shadows... and the other half just wants her big sister back. But the bottom line is that Abby is an insecure teenage girl who can't seem to stop measuring and comparing herself to Tess. She has always thought of her sister as the perfect, golden child... but as the novel progresses, we learn that Tess has been keeping secrets from everyone in ways that will shock both Abby and readers alike.

Almost every day, Abby visits her older sister, Tess, at the hospital where she spends much of her time urging Tess to somehow awaken from the coma she's fallen into after she was in a car accident. It's also at the hospital that Abby meets the gorgeous Eli, who has some of his own problems troubling him as well. It was heartwarming and sweet to see these two support each other as their relationship- and self-esteem's- slowly grew stronger.

If you've never read a novel by Elizabeth Scott, I think that's a fact which should change very soon. Her previous novels, like Perfect You, Bloom, and Stealing Heaven, are among my favourites of hers and are a great place to start. (And if you've read Bloom before, I'm sure you'll be able to recognize the return of some of the characters in this novel too.) I consider Between Here and Forever as just another welcome addition to the wonderful and heartfelt novels Elizabeth Scott consistently writes!