Review: 3:59 by Gretchen McNeil

3:59 by Gretchen McNeil
Hardcover, 368 pages
Published September 17th 2013
by Balzer & Bray


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Josie Byrne's life is spiraling out of control. Her parents are divorcing, her boyfriend Nick has grown distant, and her physics teacher has it in for her. When she's betrayed by the two people she trusts most, Josie thinks things can't get worse.

Until she starts having dreams about a girl named Jo. Every night at the same time—3:59 a.m.

Jo's life is everything Josie wants: she's popular, her parents are happily married, and Nick adores her. It all seems real, but they're just dreams, right? Josie thinks so, until she wakes one night to a shadowy image of herself in the bedroom mirror – Jo.

Josie and Jo realize that they are doppelgängers living in parallel universes that overlap every twelve hours at exactly 3:59. Fascinated by Jo's perfect world, Josie jumps at the chance to jump through the portal and switch places for a day.

But Jo’s world is far from perfect. Not only is Nick not Jo's boyfriend, he hates her. Jo's mom is missing, possibly insane. And at night, shadowy creatures feed on human flesh.

By the end of the day, Josie is desperate to return to her own life. But there’s a problem: Jo has sealed the portal, trapping Josie in this dangerous world. Can she figure out a way home before it’s too late?

From master of suspense Gretchen McNeil comes a riveting and deliciously eerie story about the lives we wish we had – and how they just might kill you.

     The concept of parallel worlds doesn't appeal to me. But because the author is Gretchen McNeil, I knew I had to give this book a chance. At first I did have an issue with the writing because this book is written in Third Person. I DO NOT like when books are written in Third Person and usually I always fight myself to keep reading. To me reading books in Third Person feels as if someone is telling me the story as oppose to me reading the book. Usually when I read books, I become a silent character watching by the sidelines. Like a stalker. LOL. I hope I'm making sense.

     Moving on, this book starts off with Josie and her personal dilemmas. Her home life is rocky and now her boyfriend and best friend betrayed her. Then things start to get a little strange. A mirror comes into play and that's when everything hits the fan. "Curiosity killed the cat" came to my mind when reading this book. Cliché I know. But that's what I felt like when reading this book. I felt like I did when watching movies and you yell at the characters for making stupid decisions.

     The reason this mirror is so important is because it opens up a portal to a world exactly like the one Josie is living in. So she crosses worlds hoping that things are different. She meets Jo, her identical in this world. They both agree to swap worlds and this is where things become to unravel and the story gets interesting. Maybe in this world her parents are still together or her boyfriend and her are still together. But in this world things are a lot worse then hers.

     As the story progressed and Josie works at trying to get out of this world back to hers. A lot happens between all the characters where you begin to question, what exactly is going on behind the scenes in both worlds. The book was interesting enough to finish, but it didn't leave me wanting more. The ending did leave of with a bit of a cliffhanger. Will I read the sequel, if there's a sequel? Chances are NO. But I will read spoilers just to get the answer to the cliffhanger. I give "3:59" a 3 stars! I hope you guys enjoy this book a lot more than me.

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