Shift Paperback – December 1, 2016

good series, liked it a lot, good read and its enjoyable and nice. highly would suggest that you read these books

This is a great book for pre and early tenns. Just enough mystery and puzzle to keep them interested without pushing them too quickly into the more adult world of books.

Wow. Let me just say I was not expecting this when I started Shift. Honestly I only read it because my reading pile was empty. But once I started it, I was hooked.Olive was popular, beautiful, fun, and bubbly, but when her dad left because of her suicide attempt, it all spiraled downhill. Suddenly Olive has a new life and is shunned, teased, and bullied by everyone including her ex-best friend, popular girl Katie. Only Ami sticks with her...but htere's something about her that's different. Something Olive never expected...Newbie Miranda Vaile comes to town, niece of crazy Loony Oona and she's fresh meat for the vultures of high school. Yet somehow, she pushes everyone away and becomes Katie's best friend and confidant...but something creepy is happening because just as Miranda's looking more and more like Katie every day, Katie's becoming paler, sicker, and tired by the minute. Everyone isn't noticing it though, and soon enough Olive starts to doubt just what is real. Becuase, when you're going crazy yourself, who's to know what's real and what's not? Even when you know what's going on.Em Bailey masterfully blurs the line between reality and imagination. I swear, there was not one time I was sure if what Olive saw and discovered was real or not! Em wrote beautifully, the prose leaning into paranormal then falling back into reality. The creep factor is high and I think that if anyone read this entirely at night...you'd definitely dream about it. Maybe not bad enough for a nightmare, but it will definitely leave an impression on its reader.Olive was a great protagonist. Because of her problems, you, like I said, could never tell what was reality and what was her mind. I mean, Miranda would mouth words that Katie had said mere seconds later, act like Katie, dress like Katie, and slowly start to look like her. And even htough Olive suspected Miranda to be a shapeshifter, I couldn't be sure. Especially with what Miranda makes Olive realise. What was mind-blowing, though, was the fact that the most obvious things were the things that surprised me the most. When there was a twist, I would think "what? That's not possible!" But the more I thought about it, the more I realised how many hints were pointing at it.There was romance! I know! I wasn't expecting it, but when the romance came I was pleasantly surprised! THe love interest was sweet and understanding and this was one romance where I loved the guy being kind and not mischevious and bad. The apocalypse is coming, isn't it? But yeah. Lachlan was just ADORABLE and I loved him!*Complimentary copy provided. This does NOT affect my review in any way.*

Hmm. TOTALLY not what I was expecting. Although now to be fair I'm not sure WHAT I was expecting. The reason for the 3* rating is that to me it feels like a fair one. Some parts of this book for me were facepalm 1* and some parts of this for me were sheer brilliance 5*Nothing like sitting on the fence...Anyway on the plus side I read this cover to cover in one sitting, it is an addictive tale and one that has many surprises. The main story revolves around Olive, who is recovering from a breakdown. She has dumped her "popular girl" friends and hangs around with Ami, a girl who understands her. Then Miranda arrives, mysterious Miranda who it is claimed murdered her own parents. Thereafter I'm not really sure what was happening a lot of the time if I'm honest. But whatever it was it was strangely compelling.There is a beautifully constructed little twist in the tale that had me full of admiration. Olive as a character appealed to me because she was an odd one and I found it tough to get a handle on her. Love interest Lachlan was a bit up and down, but anchored the two parts of this story (mental illness v bullying I guess) well.What I didnt like so much was some of the blatantly stupid actions that Olive took, especially towards the end of the novel. Mostly this is a terrific mix of horror and psychological thriller but you know, the age we live in EVERYONE knows the rules right? Those old horror movie rules. Olive herself at one point makes the observation to herself that this was the part in a movie where everyone would be yelling at her "DON'T DO IT" Yes. Indeed. So why did she then? A little forced in order to move the story along to the ultimate conclusion I guess but to me felt a little lazy.The end as well was enigmatic, not fully satisfying for this reader,a bit passive aggressive.Overall though I really enjoyed it to be fair because despite the faults it really is a right old page turner. I really really did not want to stop until I got to the resolution. Even if that resolution was a little not to my personal liking, the journey ultimately was worth it. For the twisty goodness and those 5* sheer creepy brilliant moments.Happy Reading Folks!**Source: Purchased Copy via Amazon UK**

Olive only survives in life because of two things: Ami and Luxe. She used to be popular, have it all together, until her father left. Her mind recovering from the “Incident” that happened leaves her feeling only half-way put together again.I really enjoyed Shift. I actually went to the library to borrow a different book and saw this one sitting there. Instead of reading the one I was going to read I started this one. At first the single quotes (I know, I know) around the dialogue annoyed me, and I almost didn’t read it because of that. But Olive’s quirky personality, the mystery around the “Incident”, and this mysterious new girl in the book kept me turning pages. This was one of the better YA books I’ve read in a long time. I like how the romance was slow and built over time, no instant love, like most books in this genre. I would definitely pick up this author’s next novel once she writes it! I keep wondering if there is going to be a sequel. I think the only thing I wished would have happened was a bit more of an insane ending. It was still a “good” ending don’t get me wrong, but I think it could have more much more powerful. Overall I really liked this one though!

Ich möchte nicht spoilern, daher nur mein persönlicher Eindruck:Ich fand die Buchbeschreibung super spannend, leider war ich vom Schreibstil enttäuscht und fand das Ende recht plump. Richtige Spannung kam kaum auf bzw. wurde schnell wieder abgebaut. Die Handlungen der Protagonistin fand ich zum Teil schwer nachvollziehbar und unlogisch... leider hat das Buch meinen Geschmack nicht getroffen!

I will start my review by saying, I absolutely loved this book. It kept me gripped all the way through and I will definitely be reading anything else Em Bailey writes. I really enjoyed this book. I read it in just over a day. It was fantastic.I couldn't believe all the twists in this book. I found myself shocked in places. I would read this again due to those shocking revalations. It will be interesting reading it again knowing certain things.One thing that annoyed me about this book was that for ages I cound't quite tell if it was English or American. Theres lots of English refences but I wasn't sure. The only thing that made me know for sure that it was American was when Olive said something cost so many dollars.I would have like them to go more in to the romantic side of the book. I felt Lachlan wasn't in it as much as I would have liked.I have no book I can think of to compare to this book. All I can say is that I loved it. It was so interesting. I loved the characters. I would definitely recommend! 5 out of 5!

Ein eher verwirrend geschriebenes Buch. Mir hat es keinen Spaß gemacht, da zu lieb.os geschrieben wurde. Es kommt kaum zu einem Höhepunkt, dieser Höhepunkt ist meiner Meinung unglaublich nach auch sehr unspektakulär.

I liked this book. Great concept, well written, well characterised, and with plenty of twists and turns. A writer to watch out for!

Definite 5 star book.Unusual YA real world setting - rare break from dystopias!The blurb on the back cover - that Miranda killed her parents - made me suspect it could not generate enough shock or surprise value: I was wrong.In the midst of the book I re-read a page 3 times because I totally had not seen a surprise coming and had to process how I could have been totally fooled - all in a good way & that has never happened to me so convincingly before.I would definitely read her future books.Sure I could be picky about minutia within the book, but a must-read and unique amongst great modern YA fiction.