Like Never and Always
Ann Aguirre
Tor Teen
Fiction, YA Mystery/Thriller
Themes: Cross-Genre, Ghosts, Girl Power, Schools
****
Description
Ever since grade school, Olivia and Morgan were best friends. They even wound up dating brothers, Nathan and Clay. Liv
thought they'd spend the rest of their lives together - until the crash.
Waking up in the hospital, Liv is confused: it's not her father who visits, but Morgan's. And it's Clay, Morgan's
boyfriend, sitting by her bed, not Nathan. When everyone calls her by Morgan's name, she thinks it's a mistake: her face
is bandaged, so maybe they don't know who she really is... until she sees herself in a mirror, and it's Morgan looking
back at her.
Somehow, after her body died in the crash, Liv managed to survive in Morgan's body. She always thought she knew everything
there was to know about her best friend's life and family... but she soon learns just how much Morgan was hiding from
everyone, secrets that just might get her killed - again.
Review
This is a decent thriller with supernatural overtones, as Liv - unexpectedly given a second chance at life, if at the expense of her best friend (whose memories linger in her new brain) - learns the hard way that even if you think you know a person, you rarely actually know a person. From the outside, Morgan had everything one could possibly want: a fancy home, a six-figure bank account, a father too preoccupied with his job to hover or make demands, a reputation as their high school's most popular girl and fashionista. From within, a far darker and lonelier picture emerges, even before Liz stumbles across Morgan's darkest secret of all, tied to the death of her mother and a creepy family "friend". As Liz struggles to both fit in with her new life and solve this final mystery in honor of Morgan, she gets the rare chance to see how her own death affects the world. Meanwhile, she finds herself trying to figure out her relationship with Nathan, her boyfriend, and his older brother Clay, once Morgan's companion. There are undercurrents of what it means to live one's own life, and how women and girls are too often seen as possessions or trophies, even by those who love them most. From a fairly fast start, the story generally keeps a fast pace, following Liv as she juggles Morgan's secrets and tries to fit into Morgan's life without losing everything that made her Liv. There are a few red herrings that grew distracting, and one character I thought needed a little more of a redemptive moment (it's brushed aside with off-page events), but it comes to a decently powerful conclusion. Overall, it made for a solid, emotionally involving thriller.