Here by Denise Grover Swank (Review)

Genre: Sci-fi romance

Number of Pages: 350

For ages 12+

"Sixteen year old Julia Phillips buries herself in guilt after killing her best friend Monica in a car accident. Julia awoke in the hospital with a broken leg, a new talent for drawing and false memories of the accident, in which she dies and Monica lives. The doctors attribute this to her head injury, but no one can explain how a bracelet engraved with her name ended up at the scene of the accident. A bracelet no one has ever seen before.

Classmate Evan Whittaker paid Julia no attention before the accident, let alone after. Now suddenly he’s volunteering to tutor her and offering to drive her home. She can't ignore that his new obsession started after his two-day disappearance last week and that he wears a pendant she’s been drawing for months. When the police show up one night looking for Evan, he begs Julia to run with him, convincing her that Monica is still alive. Julia agrees to go, never guessing where he’s really from." -Goodreads

This is a pretty unique review all in itself. Why, you ask? Because this isn't just some book. This is my mother's book. Yes. That's correct. My mother wrote this book. My mother is Denise Grover Swank, and she is an author. Cool, right?! I thought it would be absolutely terrible to review this book and then not tell you guys the author IS in fact my mother. Because that would mean I was totally jipping you. And I DON'T DO THAT. But, just to let you know right here, right now *intense*, I WILL be reviewing this book truthfully. Just because it's my momma doesn't mean I'm going to review this book any differently from my other reviews. ..Even if I do live with the author, and anything I say or do could affect my living whereabouts.

One cool thing about this book is the main character is named after me. I begged and BEGGED my mom to use Julia as her main character's name because I hadn't read about any main characters with the name Julia in YA. She agreed but told me she would change it if it got too weird. Thank goodness it didn't! But let's just get one thing straight here. Julia Phillips and me are nothing alike. Aside from the sarcasm, we both like to use that often. Julia is a strong character who is dealing with the grief of killing her friend Monica. At least she THINKS she killed Monica. Then, Evan comes along *swoooooonnnn* and gets Julia to come out of her shell. I loved Julia. She had a really strong personality and all of her decisions affected how you felt.

So the romance in this book, was AWESOME. Of course there had to be. If my mom didn't put awesome romance in this book she wouldn't have heard the end of it. In this book there's a love triangle. Two guys fighting over the love and affection of Julia. Reece and Evan. Of course, at some points I did pretend they were talking about this Julia and not that Julia, but a girl can dream! You're probably wondering which guy I liked better. See, that's the problem. HOW CAN I CHOOSE BETWEEN SUCH AWESOME GUYS?! Some of my friends beta read this and we all had some strong debates on team Reece or team Evan. Most said Reece, but I was a little iffy. BUT if I had to choose I would choose Reece for Julia Phillips and Evan for me. But, Evan will have to wait a few more years until I turn sixteen for it to be acceptable. Don't worry,though. Evan will still be seventeen when I turn sixteen. Also, Evan and Reece, both going on the Swoon Worthy List, just sayin'.

Some of you may be cringing at the thought of a sci-fi book. But trust me. You can't even tell it's sci-fi. I HATE science. It's my worst subject (next to math) and it bores the heck out of me, but this book doesn't even seem like it's sci-fi. Don't you worry your pretty little book lovin' heads. Now, if you DO like sci-fi, then you will adore this book even more.

There were extremely intense scenes in this book, and all of them had me biting my fingernails to nubs. Even if I have read a version of this book at least three or four times. I sometimes have no idea how my mother comes up with stuff like this, but she does. Also, when the "science-y" aspects of the book come out. She explains it to you so you can easily understand. And if I can understand it, I'm sure you'll easily understand it.

I give this book 5 out of 5 diva crowns. Now, before you start saying I'm doing this because the author is my mother, (Even though I'm sure none of you were actually going to say that.) I'm rating this 5 out of 5 diva crowns BECAUSE if there were any mistakes or something I didn't like while I was reading it any of the three or four times I read it, I would have told my mom. So therefore, I have nothing to critique!

I absolutely recommend you buy this book. ....And not just because if you buy it I may have a better chance of getting a Kindle fire or Nook tablet for Christmas... but because it's AWESOME!