Review: Through To You by Emily Hainsworth

Through To You by Emily Hainsworth
Published: October 2, 2012 (Balzer+Bray)
Source: ARC from the publisher
Rating: Squee-worthy
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Connect with the author: Twitter | Website

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Camden Pike has been grief-stricken since his girlfriend, Viv, died. He’d give anything to have just one more glimpse of her. But when Cam visits the site of Viv’s deadly car accident, he sees an apparition. Her name is Nina, and she’s a girl from a parallel world. When Cam follows here there and makes an unbelievable discovery, it’s as if all his wildest dreams have come true. 

But things are very different in this other world. Nina is hiding a secret, and the window between the worlds is shrinking every day. As Cam comes to terms with the truth, he’s forced to make a choice that will change his life forever.

  

My Review

 
I've waited after finishing Through To You to write my review, because I knew it would be difficult to find the words to express my thoughts on this debut novel; I pined for it for so long that I had begun to wonder if it could live up to my expectations.  Did it?  Yes, and then some!  I finished it a few weeks ago and my heart is still somewhat broken, yet healed.  

Emily Hainsworth combined two of my favorite aspects of YA literature into one stellar, gorgeous package with Through To You: a male narrator (not often seen!), and alternate universes.  When this book arrived in ARC form, I did a dance.  I'm a HUGE fan of all things time-travel and just wibbly-wobbly things in general, so I knew right away that this book was going to earn a special place in my heart, and it did.  The premise hooked me, but I fell in love with the characters: broken Camden, mysterious Nina, and Viv, as seen through everyone else's eyes.  I love books who make a deceased character just as important of a presence as if he/she were alive.  

I traveled with Cam, down the rabbit hole and into a world where much has changed, and yet nothing has changed.  I was just as hopeful as he was, with given a second chance to make a different choice.  Hainsworth explores several gripping themes in Through To You - most notably the question of: "what would YOU do differently?"  Seeing Cam's world from two perspectives, two totally different angles was as fascinating as it was devastating.   I could see where Emily was taking her story, but nothing could have loosened my grip on this powerful novel, just like everyone who warned Cam couldn't break through - like the reader, Cam had to make his own way for himself, even if that meant giving up everything he thought he couldn't live without.  Cam grew as a character, and made some incredibly difficult decisions, and was better for it. 

Through To You is a heart-wrenchingly beautiful novel, one of love, loss, hope, and fear.  Emily Hainsworth doesn't shy away from grief, and how hard it hits, and how there is nothing bigger in the moment that it strikes you, then the agony you're feeling.  But by the time I read the last page of Through To You, I realized that this wonderful book is about something else too - beginnings.  



Other books by this author:

Never Is a Promise (2013)   

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Fracture by Megan Miranda